Snack Attack: Banoffee Pie at Cornish Pasty Co.

Banoffee pie at Cornish Pasty Co. / Photo provided

Your New Year’s resolution to eat healthier starts… next week. Dessert at Cornish Pasty Co. is calling first.

While perusing the sweets available at the Back Bay restaurant, save room for a slice of banoffee pie, a classic dessert made with graham cracker crust, whipped cream, dulce de leche caramel, and bananas. Manager Brandon Volkenant describes the dish as a refreshing and “back to basics” treat.

“It can be filling, tasty, and it’s something good to share,” he says.

Banoffee pie (“banana” plus “toffee”) originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1900s, and has since cultivated a cult following in the states. The dessert has found local popularity as an ice cream flavor at FoMu Alternative Ice Cream and J.P Licks, and as a more traditional slice of pie at Island Creek Oyster Bar. The latter has garnered so much hype that the pastry chef there once told Boston she faced a slew of angry emails when she tried removing it from the menu.

Cornish Pasty Co. debuted its own take on banoffee pie in Boston when the shop opened here in October. Given the dessert’s origin, it fits right in with the restaurant’s English-leaning menu of puddings, made-from-scratch soups, and pasties (baked pastries filled with meats and/or vegetables).

“They’re traditional English meat pies that miners would take down into the mines and eat for lunch,” Volkenant told Universal Hub.

Cornish Pasty Co. also has locations in Arizona and Las Vegas, but the Boston site is the first one out East. And soon, a beer and wine license will grace the Back Bay spot with import beers and a small list of wines (contrary to what you might have heard in the rumor mill, the license is going to the Back Bay location and not to any venture in the Seaport).

With English draft beers soon to come, and a menu brimming with different pasties, the banoffee pie is just one of many things to seek out at this Back Bay haunt.

$8.95, Cornish Pasty Co., 51 Massachusetts Ave., Back Bay, 857-250-4497, cornishpastycoboston.com.