Pastry Chef

When Bobby Flay finished high school, he figured he'd had it with formal education. But even as he was putting away that hard-earned diploma, his father made it clear that if he didn't go to college, he would certainly have to work. To show that he meant business, the elder Flay went out and got the reluctant Manhattan youth a job in the kitchen of a restaurant in the theater district. Flay remembers the times he was late for work and when he arrived, his father would be waiting for him in front of the restaurant.

Husband-wife veterans Guy Shapiro and Luli Canuso have been around the block a time or two after meeting at the once-trendy Mirabelle on Callowhill Street in the 1980s. She was a pastry chef at Le Bec-Fin. He cooked for Russian mobsters, among other employers. Now they have set up on a sunny corner near their Fairmount house with BlueCat (1921 Fairmount Ave., 267-519-2911). Named in homage to the couple's pussycat - who Canuso says "is a domestic gray but thinks he is a Russian blue" - the BYOB features modern Latin fare at modest prices.

The Terrace Restaurant at Longwood Gardens brings to mind those informal but genteel eateries one often finds in a major art museum. The decor is understated here, and the cuisine has the civilized trappings, from the fris?e salad to the caramel apple tart. There are actually two restaurants at the Terrace: a cafe/buffet and a linen-and-candlelight, fine-dining room. Still, the style is casual, in part because the service is neighborhood-bar friendly. "We're sort of the back-end of the gardens," executive chef Frank Perko said.

If you yearn to visit England but don't want to journey across the "pond," Alison Black has a solution. In December, the native of Kingston-on-Thames opened Mulberry Tearooms, a restaurant at 60 S. Main St. in Medford that looks like an English outpost right down to the nine tea varieties, scones, shortbreads, cream meringues and pasties (a potato and cheese concoction) on the menu; the china tea cups on the sideboard; and a de rigueur picture of the queen on the wall. Queen Victoria, that is. For a picture of her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth at her coronation in 1952, you'll have to visit the restroom.

When, in the course of eating my way through a holiday, it becomes necessary to have dessert, I always go for the chocolate. Dark, rich, imported chocolate - served up liquidy for dipping, baked buttery in cake, squared and stuffed with nuts. Let Thanksgiving keep its pumpkin pie. Christmas can take back the fruitcake. Easter candy's for kids. Chocolate is the raison d'etre on Valentine's Day - an otherwise brutal holiday that demands not just a date but a sweetheart, not just dinner but a romantic interlude, not a mere sweater but red lingerie with a matching edible thong.

It's the first house Jane Dobkin has ever built. Instead of bricks and mortar, though, she used flour, shortening, ginger, lots of frosting, toasted nuts, ice cream cones and chocolate. Dobkin is one of four Main Line chefs who will be among 25 from the Philadelphia area to cook up gingerbread houses for a culinary contest and benefit called "Dreams Can Come True" at The Shops at the Bellevue in Philadelphia. Judging starts at 11 a.m. today, the winners will be announced at 3 p.m. Dobkin, a pastry chef at La Fourchette in Wayne, said hers is a traditional design.

At first glance, the pastries and cakes at Robin's Nest may take your breath away: You will not be the first to gasp at the most incredible-looking desserts this side of Paris. Whether heaped with a kaleidoscope of fresh fruit or groaning beneath a mountain of real whipped cream, the luscious desserts are the best reason for visiting the pretty Mount Holly bakery and cafe that Robin Winzinger, former pastry chef at the Village Cheese Shop in Haddonfield, opened in March. Pastry chef Pamela Gary's artistry is shown in an ethereal chocolate mousse cake ($2 per slice)

The city of Philadelphia has announced some of the food events for its gala Memorial Day weekend exchange with the city of New Orleans. Several events highlighting the regional cuisine of both cities and sponsored by their tourist organizations will take place on May 24, 25 and 26. In Philadelphia, there will be a Jambalaya Jam, a New Orleans festival of food and music, at Penn's Landing between Walnut and Chestnut Streets, just north of the...

Yo, Chefs! Our dining experience at Brasserie Perrier was flawless. The chocolate souffle cake added a gracious note to our wonderful dinner. Would proprietor Georges Perrier share the recipe? Eileen Rosenbaum, Gladwyne Dear Eileen, Brasserie Perrier's boy wonder, pastry chef Rocco Lugrino, loves chocolate. Along with his Chocolate Souffle Cake, chocolate lovers can enjoy a Chocolate Mint Chip Parfait (frozen chocolate mousse with a liquid center and candied mint chips)

When it came time to fete itself on the occasion of its first birthday, the Cadme Gallery, 2114 Locust St., decided to give itself a double-barreled blowout. First, they invited Texas-born Nina Beall to hang her huge and truly amazing landscapes on the gallery walls. Then they invited a handful of the great chefs of Philadelphia to enter their original works of confectionary art in the gallery's "Let 'Em Etch, Sketch, Sculpt and Paint Cake" contest. Winner Jackie Pluton, whose "Souvenir from France" cafe scene will be displayed along with the rest of the fattening masterpieces through Saturday, is a gracious 24-year-old who arrived from France nine months ago to supervise the nouvelle cuisine at La Truffe, 10 S. Front St. His impressionistic pastillage and chocolate winner depicts an angular old man sitting at a small table in a cafe with his bottle of wine and his cane.