Whip Dessert Cafe

After Newport Beach’s Shokuh Pattiserie set a new local bar for French pastry ingredients and presentation, several competitors popped up across Orange County with similar offerings and at least somewhat different execution. Gorgeously decorated and ambitious from its opening day, Whip Dessert Cafe in Huntington Beach has the most in common with its predecessor, most notably offering a handful of gloss-finished mini-cakes and neat croissants (ube, shown). But Whip also has some unique sweet treats made somewhat unusually with beef or duck fat, plus several durian and ube items, all collectively hinting at the bakery’s underpublicized Asian heritage.

Since opening, Whip has increased its focus on “high tea” options, offering fancy multi-layer dessert trays and drinks to groups. Critically, their drinks tend to be great. Vietnamese coffees, including pandan, egg foam, crème brûlée and ube, are as compellingly flavored and presented as at Little Saigon specialists. Whip also sells multiple teas (including a fair matcha latte), and has added a handful of lunch items to its originally short menu.