Here Is The World's First Dessert Bar Dedicated To Marshmallows

In London, just ask, and even the most curious wishes will be fulfilled. Would you like, for example, the flavour of roasted marshmallows, like the ones prepared on bonfires at the end of summer, enclosed in a takeaway cup and available all year round? Here you are, content. In the British capital, which has made unusual and international cuisine one of its strengths, the world's first dessert bar dedicated entirely to marshmallows has just opened.

Mello is located in the famous covered market of Seven Dials. The food court is located a few steps from Covent Garden, which houses, among the many restaurants, tapas bars and coffee shops, also Pick & Cheese, which went viral for its rotating ribbon of cheese samples, and Boolay Crêpes, known on social media for its crème brûlée crêpe cones: thin cone-shaped crêpes, filled with custard and topped with a crunchy layer of caramelised sugar.

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Right here, the team of Chin Chin, the London ice cream parlour famous for revolutionising the concept of ice cream and for its hot chocolates that have gone viral, decided to go further, opening a new space dedicated to sweet experimentation. The menu includes their “greatest hits”: from caramel ice cream and burnt butter to banana bread toast with honey and butter, to the new exclusive creation, the Block of Butter ice cream, a nostalgic reminder of the flavour of crunchy honey toast and strawberry jam, enclosed in a golden plate of butter and honey ice cream. With Mello, the team thus brings its inventiveness to the world of marshmallows: after years spent perfecting their famous recipe, they finally decided that it deserved a place of its own.

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The origin of this delight is older than you imagine. The ancient Egyptians were the first to enjoy a marshmallow-like dessert as early as 2000 BC, reserved only for gods and members of the royal family. It was prepared with marshmallow, a plant that grows only in wetlands (hence the name marshmallow).

It was then the French, in the 19th century, who perfected the recipe by replacing mallow root with gelatin, obtaining a more stable and easier version to work with. Thanks to these new production methods, marshmallows arrived in the United States at the beginning of the twentieth century, and by the 1950s, they became a pop icon of American confectionery culture. On the other hand, the origin of the s'mores is different and more mysterious. According to the National Confectioners Association, it is not known for certain who invented the tradition of roasting marshmallows over a fire, but already in 1927, the Girl Scout Handbook was the first publication to report the recipe that combined marshmallows, chocolate and Graham cookies. It was probably the Girl Scouts who coined the name s'more”, short for give me some more.

Today, marshmallows and s'mores are loved all year round: protagonists of summer, roasted over fire, and of winter, dipped or melted in hot chocolate. In Chin Chin's new concept store, marshmallows are burned on the spot and served over drinks such as thick hot chocolate or matcha latte, accompanied by small oven-baked lemon meringue bombs. The best part? You don't have to be a deity or a member of the royal family to enjoy this new, irresistible delicacy.

Read the original article on ELLE Italy.