Most Fridays the cabinet lights go off at six. On Friday 25 September they stay on. Patisserie After Dark runs 6pm to 9pm. For three hours the room turns into the closest thing to a dessert bar Christchurch gets: plated desserts, an open kitchen building them in front of you, and no mains to work through first. Come with someone. Half the point is the swap.
Friday 25 September, 6pm to 9pm
Our usual hours run 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Friday, and 10am to 3pm on Saturday. Sundays and Mondays we are closed. A dessert evening is a scheduled exception, not standing late-night trade. Dates go up on the Evenings & Events page, and the next is Friday 25 September. No tickets, no booking. You walk in and order from a menu that exists for that one night. Desserts are made to order and they sell out, so come early.
What comes out of the kitchen
The menu rotates every time. Dhi uses these evenings to test plates before they ever reach the daytime cabinet, so the experiments land here first. Past nights ran the Signature Chocolate Fondue at $25, warm Belgian chocolate with a board of things to dip. Crepe Suzette at $20 arrived under orange sauce with roasted almond and coconut crumble. Tiramisu French Toast at $22 came with chocolate crumble, mascarpone foam and coffee crème anglaise. A Roasted Plum Baked Alaska arrived with its marshmallow shell scorched outside, cold underneath.
Then there was Curau Crème Brûlée, a Brazilian sweet corn pudding set under a sugar lid that cracks under the spoon. We pulled that technique apart in an earlier piece on crème brûlée. Dhi trained in French and Italian kitchens and has spent more than eighteen years in patisserie. His route from Rio to Welles Street explains a lot about how the plates read.
None of those are promised for the 25th. The page says a range of new made-to-order desserts, and nothing more specific. Turning up not knowing is half of it.
Why it works better with two
The fondue makes the case on its own. A pot of warm chocolate, a plate of fruit and cake cut for dipping, two people over the same board. Nobody leaves the last piece. Order one dessert each and you have four flavours between you, because nobody guards their own plate for long. The open kitchen does the rest of the work. You watch a dish being built, then eat it minutes later, still warm.
Want the room to yourselves? A private group dessert evening runs after hours with your group alone and Dhi talking through the technique behind each plate. Enquiries go through the form on the group experiences page, in bands up to 20 or more.
If that Friday does not suit
The made-to-order desserts run through the week too. Chocolate Lava Cake at $20, Matilda Chocolate at $20 and the S'more Cookie at $18 are each assembled to order, each warm when it lands.
The cabinet holds the cold side. Ferrari Rocher at $16, Pudim Caramel Flan at $10, and the Black & White Chocolate Mousse Mini at $15. Those three are made with no added gluten, as is plenty else in the No Added Gluten Cakes & Desserts collection. Our kitchen is small and without exclusive production areas for all of our different recipes, so traces may occur. Nothing here is safe for severe coeliac disease.
Bringing a crowd instead? The layer cakes start at $95 and serve 12 to 15 at 15cm. Mini cakes and petit fours suit a table where everyone wants something different. Weighing a mousse cake against a cheesecake? This explains what separates them.
Getting here, and getting an order in
There is nothing to book for the 25th beyond turning up; the Evenings & Events page carries the date. Everything else works the usual way. Most products need two days' notice, and the checkout date picker only offers dates the kitchen can meet for what is in your cart. A few need three, including the full-size Black & White Chocolate Mousse and the Romeo & Juliet Cheesecake, both $100. Petit fours need seven. Collection is from the patisserie no earlier than the slot you choose, and we do not deliver.
Find us inside The Welder at 20 to 26 Welles Street, an 1880s building in the central city. Parking sits across the road and behind it, with bike racks by the side entrance. The Bus Interchange is one block north, seven minutes on foot. Dogs are welcome, with a water bowl and tables you can clip a lead to. More on the room is on the patisserie and cafe page, and sizes and storage answers sit in the FAQ. For the wider argument about eating dessert as the evening, we made it here.
