Jimmy’s Kitchen is Shanghai’s original Western restaurant, so it’s only natural that we include its signature baked Alaska in our Fatty Issue. The dish is a full-circle kind of deal though—Jimmy’s came to fame in the ’20s for its European fare, but its most popular dessert is actually one originally created out of a Chinese idea for a baked dessert with an icy core (and later given an American name, so the story goes in John Ayto’s appropriately named book The Glutton’s Glossary).

The resulting dish was reintroduced to Shanghai when Jimmy’s Kitchen re-opened last year and quickly became a Weibo celebrity among the city’s foodies; it’s a traditionally styled, hot-cold sensation featuring a baked mound of meringe encasing dots of berries and monstrous scoops of vanilla and strawberry ice cream that’s set on fire at the table. It all squats on a cake base, and despite the burnt meringue’s sweet, saliva-inducing fragrance and the dessert’s undoubtedly calorie-rich content, it all still comes off relatively light. That said, be sure to bring a couple friends—this is an end-of-meal treat that only the most genuine of fatties will be able to take down on their own.

DETAILS

What: Jimmy’s Kitchen

Where: 1/F, Jin Jiang Hotel, 59 Maoming Nan Lu 茂名南路59号锦江酒店1楼