When Ser Steak and Spirits' executive chef updated the restaurant’s dessert menu, he decided kicking it old school was the best bet.
For whatever reason, the Millionaire Pie had disappeared from the menu, but after much popular demand, the chef felt it was time to bring it back.
“Why come up with something new when something old still works,” says Anthony Van Camp, the restaurant’s executive chef.
And the Food Network apparently agreed. Its show Guilty Pleasures is about the nation’s best-kept-secret foods — the ones that seem so bad but are so, so good — and it featured Dallas’ own Ser Steak and Spirits inside the Hilton Anatole.
The once-forgotten Millionaire Pie made the program. It's essentially an ice box pie with graham cracker crust, vanilla ice cream and raspberry sorbet, all topped with meringue.
The episode featured Van Camp explaining the process of making the restaurant’s best-selling dessert, as well as chef and reality TV personality Fabio Viviani raving about it.
At one point in the episode, Viviani says the meringue is “like the foam of the cappuccino would like to be when it dies and goes to heaven.”
And let’s face it, you can’t really argue with Viviani.
The episode spends about three minutes exploring the Millionaire Pie, but Van Camp says shooting took nine and a half hours.
“It was awesome. They were super, super in-depth,” he says.
The four people on the crew that day went through 24 Millionaire Pies just to get all of the perfect shots. They used a motorized lazy Susan to spin the pie around, Van Camp says.
On Monday night, Ser Steak and Spirits hosted a viewing party of the show, but Van Camp says watching himself on camera makes him sick to his stomach. He admittedly doesn’t watch a lot of TV, mainly because he doesn’t own one.
While the Millionaire Pie might be a cool treat, it’s on the menu all year long.
“I don’t think it’s coming off anytime soon,” Van Camp says.