Sweet Dreams

Savoring a warm apple tart at a bistro in the French Riviera,

AdriAna Yorke was struck with inspiration. She knew she had to add the dessert to her menu at Otro Cinco, the downtown Syracuse restaurant where she works as a pastry chef.

Following her return from France, where she interned with The Creative Mind Group at the Cannes Film Festival, AdriAna sits at a floweradorned table just outside of the Spanish and Mexican restaurant. She

smiles and waves to the waiters who are navigating the tables. “We joke around together,” she says of her coworkers. “No one is ever too serious.”

When she’s not busy traveling the world or studying, AdriAna, a sophomore television, radio and film major from Utica, hones her skills in the kitchen. “My mom and dad always cooked and baked,” she explains. As a child, she mirrored their habits and discovered a passion for baking. Her sister, Johanna, owns Westcott’s

Alto Cinco, and when she asked her younger sibling to be the pastry chef at the downtown branch, AdriAna’s decision was a no-brainer.

The second semester of her freshman year marked the beginning of her demanding routine. She spends two evenings a week in the restaurant’s basement bakery on South Warren Street. There, she takes inventory and gets to work. AdriAna is the restaurant’s only pastry chef—a role that may seem daunting—but she typically evades the hectic dinner rush. “It gets stressful when I’m working quickly to get things done or when there are a lot of people in the prep kitchen, but I try to have everything done before then,” she says.

Within reason, AdriAna has free reign to bake whatever she desires. “My sister lets me have my freedom. We work together by bouncing around ideas,” she says. The sisters collaborated to develop the restaurant’s fall dessert menu, which featured fresh dishes influenced by AdriAna’s travels in France: apple tarts, poached pears, chocolate tortes, and crème brûlée. Although she’s inspired by other pastries, sticking to a precise recipe isn’t her style. “I

start with a base recipe, but I like to add things,” says AdriAna, who’s also perfected a few recipes of her own. The main difference between baking at home and in the restaurant’s kitchen is quantity, she says—the half-pound cookies at Otro Cinco would be difficult to replicate in an apartment oven.

AdriAna admits it can be tough to balance her conflicting roles. This semester, she planned ahead by tailoring her academic schedule to her work schedule. “Knowing that Monday and Thursday I’m coming to work, I set my own deadlines,” she says. Despite her tight schedule, she finds time to be active on campus through involvement with a cooking show on CitrusTV, College Eats, and her sorority, Alpha Xi Delta. Looking toward the future, she’s still seeing sweets. “I want to combine my Newhouse education with my baking skills,” says AdriAna. Her dream job? Working on the production side of Food Network.

With thoughts of homework lingering in the back of her mind, she heads back into the restaurant, off to fan out apple slices for the warm tart she once ate halfway across the world.

WORDS: TAYLOR WATSON

PHOTOS: ELIZA CHEN