A Ferrari Rocher fights the spoon before it lets you in. Dark chocolate and roasted almonds set hard around the outside, so the first thing you get is a snap and a scatter of nut fragments. Then the spoon drops straight through into mousse. Photographs cannot hold any of that, because the best part of a Rocher is a sound.
Under the shell
Three layers, bottom up. The base is a flourless chocolate and hazelnut cake, dense enough to hold a fork mark. Above it sits a light mousse blending Nutella with caramelised hazelnuts, so the nut arrives twice: once toasted and sharp, once as a soft sweet hum that stays behind your teeth. The dark chocolate and almond coating wraps the lot.
One serving, $16, and a cabinet item that needs no notice at all. Either it is there when you walk in or it is gone.
Made with no added gluten
Ground hazelnuts do the work flour usually does, so the Rocher is made with no added gluten. Worth being precise about the wording. Recent New Zealand food labelling rules mean we never claim any item is gluten free, only that we have added no gluten-containing ingredients. Our kitchen is small, without exclusive production areas for every recipe, so traces may occur. Nothing here is guaranteed safe for severe coeliac disease.
Hazelnuts and almonds are in it, plainly, and we never claim anything is nut free. Someone at your table avoiding nuts? The cabinet holds other things made with no added gluten. The Lemon Tart cuts sharp and cold. The Romeo & Juliet cheesecake runs white chocolate against guava jam. The Pudim Caramel Flan wobbles when the plate moves, sitting in dark caramel with a bitter edge to it. The Black & White chocolate mousse keeps dark and white layered apart until the spoon mixes them. Browse the whole no added gluten cakes and desserts range, or read our longer piece on that part of the menu.
What to drink with it
Hazelnut this strong holds its ground against espresso. A hot coffee is the straightforward answer. Want to stay on chocolate? The dark chocolate thickshake blends dark Belgian chocolate through vanilla ice cream, thick enough to pull at the straw, and comes New York style with a toasted marshmallow rim or Paris style with the whipped cream on the side. Most hot and cold drinks have a dairy-free milk option. Nowhere else on the menu is that a standing, everyday offer.
Two people, two different things
Order differently and the cabinet pays you back. Come with a friend on a Thursday afternoon, take one Rocher and one Apple Pie, halve both and swap plates. Twice the menu for the same money, and a crisp shell followed by warm spiced apple. You will disagree about which one won.
Tables move here, so four to eight of you fit together without booking a private room. Two low tables for children, high chairs, and the room is dog friendly with a water bowl and metal table legs for clipping a lead. The kitchen is open-plan, so there is something to watch while you argue. Prefer doing to sitting? Our group experiences include a mini-cake decorating challenge for four to twelve guests, Tuesday to Friday between 11am and 4pm.
Where the Rocher sits
The mini desserts range runs $10 to $16, every one a single serving. Build a small tasting for a table without committing to a whole cake. Want the room itself first? The patisserie page covers it, and we have written at length about the chocolate end of the menu.
Just turning up
Cabinet items and drinks need no notice, so the Rocher is a walk-in. Want to be certain of one? Order online and the checkout date picker only offers dates the kitchen can meet, with two days covering most of the range. Everything is collected from our patisserie inside The Welder on Welles Street in the central city. We do not deliver. Open 10am to 9pm Tuesday to Saturday.
