Will Goldfarb

Coming Up

Le Cordon Bleu, Paris gave Will Goldfarb the pastry discipline that frames the rest of the record: exacting technique, formal training, and a route into kitchens where precision mattered. The early résumé reads like a map of brigade pastry and service-side responsibility across several serious kitchens. He worked as apprentice, commis at El Bulli in Roses, Spain (1999–2000), where the standard was precision and experimentation; he was pastry chef at The Ryland Inn in Whitehouse, New Jersey (1999–2001); then garde manger manager at Atlas in New York City (2001); followed by pastry chef at Papillon in New York City (2001–2002). The line continued at Morimoto by Masaharu Morimoto in Philadelphia (2002–2004), before Cru in New York City (2004–2005), each step adding range without losing the pastry center of the work. Ownership came after the kitchen years, first as owner, chef at Room 4 Dessert in New York (2006–2007), and then as owner at Picnick in New York City (2007). The current role as owner, chef of Room 4 Dessert (since 2012) shows the throughline plainly: dessert treated as its own venue, built with the discipline of a pastry career rather than as an after-dinner add-on.

Where They Are Now

Room 4 Dessert is built around a nine-course dessert tasting menu made from 99% local ingredients and served with cocktails in the tropics of Bali. That format places dessert in the same arena as any tasting menu: paced, sequenced, and asked to carry structure across multiple courses rather than arrive as a single sweet finish. The present work also shows how the earlier stations have been folded into one format. Paris provided the training, El Bulli the rigor, the New York and Philadelphia years the grind of service and pastry production, and Bali the setting for a program that treats dessert as a complete meal logic of its own. The result is not decoration after dinner, but a menu with its own rhythm, balance, and finish.

Signature

Will’s signature dishes include Chocobubbles 4 Evah, 10 Years of Solitude, Jitterbug Perfume, Black tea and cardamom crème brûlée, and litchi sorbet with tea air. The names point to a pastry language that is playful without being loose: a menu built to carry references, contrast, and a little wit, while still staying anchored in technique.

In Their Words “I went to Paris and I started doing pastry.”