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Chocolatier Max Brenner welcomes spring with pavlova, cherry blossom & delicious green tea pizza

Oona McGee Mar 5, 2016
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Because there’s no better way to welcome spring than with a sweet serving of sakura and matcha.

Chocolate restaurant Max Brenner has made a name for itself throughout Japan as the place to go to for sweet, chocolatey marshmallow-topped pizzas. So when we heard they were bringing out a unique green tea variety as part of a new limited-edition spring menu, we had to stop by and grab a slice for ourselves.

▼ When we saw what was on the spring menu (centre), we decided to try all the things. For research purposes, of course.

The Omotesando location is a great place to watch the world go by, especially when you’ve got a table filled with sweets like these.

▼ From left to right: Cherry Blossom Choctail (750 yen/US$6.59), White Chocolate Green Tea Pizza (500 yen per slice), and Chocolate Egg Pavlova (980 yen).

We start off the sweets fest by cracking into the pavlova, which has a unique topping designed to resemble a fried egg, which they’re calling an “Easter Egg” in honour of the upcoming springtime celebration.

The presentation here is absolutely beautiful, with two layers of hard chocolate — white and milk — drizzled over the baked meringue that forms the pavlova base.

What looks like an egg yolk gives itself away with its powerful, fruity aroma. The bright yellow sherbet is mango and passionfruit-flavoured, and sits snugly on a bed of freshly whipped cream.

When served, the waiter warned us that the pavlova would be hard to crack into so he advised us to follow the pre-cut line in the middle when slicing into the sweet. Even then, this was a tough beast to conquer, with the meringue proving to be much harder than expected.

Still, once it was opened, the rewards were great. The “egg” melted into the pavlova stack, covering everything with the rich flavour of passionfruit, mango and whipped cream. After drizzling it with the chocolate sauce provided, we tried a mouthful and were immediately impressed with the flavours. Passionfruit, strawberries and whipped cream are some of the most popular ingredients to fill a pavlova, and this hit all the right notes when it comes to traditional flavours.

However, the absence of a moist, marshmallow-like centre made for a crunchy, meringue-heavy experience which outweighed all the other flavours and highlighted the hard texture of the base. After all that meringue, we were happy to move onto the drink portion of the meal, with the cleverly named Cherry Blossom Choctail.

Part of the appeal of a Max Brenner Choctail is the adorable drinkware cup it comes served in. Seen in their stores around the world, the tall Alice in Wonderland-inspired ceramic drinking glass features the words “drink me” on the front, with the straw hole representing the rabbit hole which Alice falls into in the classic story.

Underneath the light-coloured matcha cream topping lies a pink cherry blossom base, which just peeks through at the top. The colour combination has been designed to resemble the pink flowers and green leaves of the sakura tree, one of Japan’s most iconic symbols of spring.

As we go down the rabbit hole, we find a deliciously milky drink, with a mellow, bittersweet cherry blossom flavour that combines beautifully with the light-flavoured matcha cream. The flavours are so subtle they’d be hard to identify in a blind tasting, but they work wonderfully here to create a well-balanced matcha sakura milkshake.

Finally, we move on to the piece we’d been waiting for: the White Chocolate Green Tea Pizza. While we were tempted to order a full or even half-sized pizza, we decide to be good and settle for just a slice this time around.

▼ It looked beautiful, with a generous topping of toasted marshmallows interspersed with a handful of azuki red beans.

▼ And underneath it all, an enticing, green matcha base.

The dough here is different to those used in traditional pizzas. It’s paler, and has a much chewier texture.

After cutting into the slice, the green tea chocolate oozes out. It’s the prominent flavour in each mouthful, providing a beautiful counterpart to the sweetness of the marshmallow.

▼ While the beans work to round out the flavours with their nutty undertones.

The chewy texture of the dough is reminiscent of the mochi used in sticky rice cakes, which works perfectly with the traditional flavours of matcha and red bean.

This is a fantastic pizza, and one which we’ll definitely be going back for again before the end of May, when the limited-edition menu finishes. It’s a sweet way to enjoy the springtime period!

Store Information
Max Brenner Chocolate Bar Omotesando Hills/MAX BRENNER CHOCOLATE BAR 表参道ヒルズ店
Address: Tokyo-to, Shibuya-ku, Jingumae 4-12-10 Omotesando Hills Main Building
東京都渋谷区神宮前４丁目１２ー１０表参道ヒルズ本館
Hours: 11:30 a.m – 10:30 p.m.

Follow Oona on Twitter for all the latest in limited-edition Japan releases and information about new openings and restaurants around Tokyo.