When is a tomato not a tomato?

This is the year of the “Loewe tomato” summer. This article suggests that trompe l’oeil tomato dishes have made it onto restaurant menus.

The “tomatoes” recently served as dessert at the Parisian restaurant Carbonis were not, in fact, tomatoes at all. The work of pastry designer Alina Prokopenko, small mounds of vanilla sponge cake, strawberry compote, praline, and tomato-infused caramel were shrouded beneath glazed, red ganache and topped with the leaves and stem of real tomatoes to complete the realistic look. Instead of using molds, Prokopenko covered each in plastic film and then pressed it into shape. As in nature, “every tomato is different,” Prokopenko says.

https://www.eater.com/24194448/trompe-loeil-tomato-dishes-loewe-trend?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us