Raphael Haasz, Café Boulud’s pastry chef, insists that his coffee opera cake is traditional, but the delicate details as well as the pairing of chocolate ice cream with crumble make this one stand out. Made with two layers of Jaconde biscuit (a sponge cake baked in thin layers with almond flour, nuts and whipped egg white), it’s then topped with coffee buttercream, a layer of bittersweet chocolate ganache, and dark chocolate glaze. Chef Haasz explains that the secret to why it tastes so good is that he soaks the Jaconde biscuit in about four and a half pounds of coffee syrup, which explains its potency, too! Decorated with a chocolate phyllo dough ribbon and chocolate sticks, the opera cake is served with Guanaja (a high grade bitter dark valrhona chocolate from South America made of 70% cocoa) ice cream atop chocolate crumble. The cake is rich and spongy, the ice cream refreshing and the crumble crunchy. Combined, it’s coffee-chocolate heaven.