Explore the sweet world of Karys Plaxe, the group pastry chef responsible for crafting Black Sheep Restaurants’ cakes, pies, sweet snacks, and desserts
On a good day, Karys Plaxe assists with the production of an estimated 400 cakes and desserts coming out of Butter based in Soho, an Americana-inspired bakery that serves as the central dessert kitchen for up to 25 restaurants across the Black Sheep Restaurants group.
“I am not happy unless there’s 75 balls to juggle and my hair’s on fire,” Karys frankly tells me in a chat inside Messina during the weekday-afternoon ice-cream rush.
Karys is Group Pastry Chef of Black Sheep’s dining group, the sweet maestro that commands the direction for gelato store Messina, Butter Cake Shop and Butter Cookies, and the 60-plus varieties of desserts served at your favourite Black Sheep restaurants. She takes her sweet career seriously.
Her baking journey began in her youth spent at an Arizona high school. The “stubborn” high-achiever would routinely treat her study-group partners to cakes and desserts, never producing the same treat more than once.
“I had prepared myself to [enter a career in] science with my academic success in high school, but chose to enter [college] studying baking and pastry arts management, fusing together science and art in pastry production.”
Shortly after graduation, Karys ventured to Australia to work at former three-hatted restaurant Sepia, before joining famed pastry chef Dominique Ansel and his sweet supremacy of dessert shops in New York and worldwide.
“I jumped straight into cronut land,” Karys recounts, when she joined the chef’s Soho bakery as the croissant-meets-doughnut pastry became the craze. Assisting in R&D and eccentric dessert production, she later opened Dominique Ansel in the trendy West Village neighbourhood, crafting a signature eight-course chef’s table menu featuring a night of dessert tastings, cocktails, stories, and an accompanying playlist.
Karys assisted Dominique in opening his Tokyo and London stores, before leaving the chain for crumbly adventures in Hong Kong. In 2017, she joined Vicky Cheng’s VEA as pastry chef to develop the sweet side of the French fine-dining restaurant.
In a story familiar to many Hong Kong-based chefs, Black Sheep came calling and sought the skills of Karys to manage the group’s pastry production and the eight restaurants that offered dessert menus. Cake construction began slowly, but soon dessert mania spread all over Black Sheep and Hong Kong.
“Chris and Asim [co-founders of Black Sheep Restaurants] were eager to kick-start production of the very beginnings of Butter, experimenting with our first LANDMARK mall pop-up, which lasted two years.” Murmurings from Chris in 2020 came with the possibility of Messina from Australia arriving in Hong Kong.
October 2021 saw the opening of both Butter and Messina, priming Karys to train with the Sydney team in the art of gelato-making, “from pasteurising, to churning, to storage, to equipment maintenance”.
Today, Butter sees the bulk production of the cakes and desserts that many Black Sheep lovers devour on a weekly basis. Karys estimates the bakery churns out 300 to 400 cakes and pies daily.
Butter operates 24 hours, receiving orders from chefs at 11PM, baking cakes and pies at 3AM, sending off ordered pies at 11AM, decorating cakes by 7AM, and delivering restaurant desserts at 12PM. The sweet stuff at Black Sheep is a non-stop job and not one to be taken lightly.
At Messina, Karys juggles even more balls. The gelato team produce 52 different flavours a year, with weekly specials shared Tuesday through Sunday, 30 classics from the Australia Messina menu, and five classic Hong Kong flavours, including black sesame tong yuen, Hong Kong milk tea, and Dragon’s Back, a sorbet inspired by one of the city’s best hikes.
“We create the Messina gelato, milkshakes for Burger Circus, Bombe Alaska cake for Magistracy Dining Room, frozen malvaviscos for Buenos Aires Polo Club, cookies for Butter, and Chinese almond financiers for Grand Majestic Sichuan.”
Messina’s gelato flavours and seasonal cakes, Butter’s Americana recipes, and Black Sheep’s dessert selections are all uniquely eccentric and fanciful. Karys likes to wow. “I have a liking for sharing things that people haven’t seen before and making people’s faces light up. I also enjoy sharing the simple things.”
“At Messina, we geek out on ingredients. We’re not serving sugar-on-sugar garbage, but high-quality products. If you can make [a dessert] playful and give it a fun name and a story, you have greatness.”
“This is a very cool job, because I have the built-in insight of the [Black Sheep] chefs to work with and collaborate on creative prompts for restaurants. The ideas are boundless! It is a great opportunity for me to create growth for my managers, with chef Jared [Plaxe] at Messina, chef Helen [Cheung] in the group, chef Natalie [Chan] at Butter, and head pastry chef Daphne Lung with new projects.”
For those yet to savour the fruits of Karys’ labour at Butter and Messina, the chef recommends trying the apple pie, red velvet cake, and New York cheesecake for the Butter classics, as well as Messina’s pistachio praline gelato and Nicky Glasses, a coffee-infused salted caramel gelato layered with whipped cream.
This year, Karys shares of Butter’s plans to expand with new cake and pie flavours, the introduction of brunch items, and more custom and wedding cakes, feeding a desire by Hong Kongers to get creative with their treasured celebrations.
The pastry chef is eager to explore new special holiday flavours and artist collaborations at Messina – and the possibility of a second store in town. Sugary adventures await at Black Sheep!
Sweet-tooths who have never tried a Butter cake, Messina gelato, or dessert at a Black Sheep restaurant can find out more information here on how to try Karys’ special sweet creations.
