Claud’s Iconic Devil’s Food Cake Inspired This East Village Cocktail

In this era of high-tech cocktails, the drinks at even your local bar can get a bit… complicated. But at Romeo’s in New York’s East Village, instead of calling for machinery like centrifuges and rotovaps, the recipe starts off with a different painstaking instruction: Bake a chocolate cake.

Romeo’s founder Evan Hawkins likes to give nods to some of his favorite NYC institutions in cocktail form. On a previous menu, he had an ode to the cheesecake at downtown’s always-crowded Kiki’s. For the bar’s most recent menu flip, Hawkins decided to focus in on another iconic dessert, this one from just a few blocks away at another East Village haunt, Claud.

When Claud, a wine bar and bistro from partners Chase Sinzer and Joshua Pinsky, opened in August 2022, it instantly made waves throughout the city with its indulgent dishes like chicken liver–filled agnolotti and flaky mille-feuille dripping with ripe summer tomatoes and moses sleeper cheese. But the menu’s greatest showstopper might have been the Devil’s Food Cake for two — a jaw-droppingly large slice of cake with layer upon layer of chocolate. With limited quantities available each night, diners would inquire about the dessert at the beginning of their meal, hoping to get some. It’s so iconic that the restaurant even released a custom candle that resembles a thick, perfectly glazed piece.

Credit: Claud

So how did Hawkins, who often stops by his restaurant neighbor for a slice of the cake, capture this rich baked good in a cocktail? The process took a lot of trial and error — about 14 different iterations, according to Hawkins — but he was set on finding the right balance between the chocolate and the confectionary notes. The answer was right beneath his nose: He needed to use real chocolate cake.

The first step for this recipe is to make a chocolate lava cake. (Even though this is different from Claud’s Devil’s Food Cake, it definitely packs in the rich, chocolate flavor.) He combines the cake with vodka, Santa Teresa rum, and a mixture of two crème de cacao brands.

Credit: Romeo’s

“We use Tempus Fugit Spirits Crème de Cacao to add notes of cooked cocoa nibs, like an authentic cacao flavor, and we add some Giffard White Crème de Cacao for the more confectionary notes,” Hawkins says.

While the lava cake added chocolate and sugar to the drink, Hawkins still felt like he was missing the feeling of a freshly baked dessert, so he added a house-made toasted oat syrup and blended it all together.

The final cocktail is a milk punch. To get it there, Hawkins adds an acid solution made with chocolate milk and clarifies the drink. It’s served in a frozen rocks glass over a large ice cube and topped with chocolate shavings and a pinch of sea salt — just like Claud’s Devil’s Food Cake.

The article Claud’s Iconic Devil’s Food Cake Inspired This East Village Cocktail appeared first on VinePair.