New Firefly Pastry Chef Robert Tarlow: Crème Brûlée + Playing With Kids Cereal

A. Scattergood

Firefly pastry chef Robert Tarlow

Sometimes Los Angeles seems like a very small town. When you go to the farmers markets. When you walk into a restaurant kitchen to say hi to one chef and run into another one you'd lost track of, however briefly. Such was the case at Firefly in Studio City yesterday, when we stopped by to talk to Jason Travi and found pastry chef Robert Tarlow in the tiny kitchen as well. Tarlow (Grace, Sona) had quietly arrived about six weeks ago.

As Tarlow moved around the kitchen, making a batch of coffee marshmallows for a Rice Krispie Treat experiment and infusing Froot Loops (yes, Froot Loops) for ice cream, he said that he'd begun with the obligatory crème brûlée, but had started playing with kids cereals. There were the boxes. There was Travi, threatening to eat their entire contents. Tarlow said that he had been doing something with S'Mores and was considering "going a little more pop culture."