Pastry Chef Alyssa Lieberman made a rather on-the-fly and whimsical decision to attend Johnson & Wales University to study Baking and Pastry arts. So far it seems to be working for her.

Believing that you can learn  something important in any situation, Lieberman flipped burgers and mixed salads in combination with her pastry responsibilities at several restaurants across central Massachusetts before her education was finished. With her degree and a short study at the ENSP pastry school in Yssingeaux, France under her belt, she took an internship at the Boylston Street icon L’Espalier in Boston and stayed on after for almost two years. Pastry Chef Jiho Kim’s desire, and ability, to break the rules of the game and defy the conventional attitudes around him inspired her to do the same.

As a member of Chef Benjamin Lacy’s team at Tastings Wine Bar & Bistro, a farm-to-table restaurant in Foxboro, Lieberman earned a chance to run her first pastry program. She had room and resources to try out new ideas and push the boundaries she had come to ignore anyways. The next step was an opportunity at Cambridge classic Craigie on Main where she ran the pastry program as Pastry Chef under Executive Chef Tony Maws and Chef de Cuisine Carl Dooley. Her love for the local grew more concrete in this haven for the seasonal and quality-inspired, as did her desire to break rules. Who says you can’t put Foie Gras in your pot de crème? Or mushrooms in your parfait for that matter? Not, Lieberman.

These days Lieberman runs the kitchen at New City Microcreamery in Hudson Massachusetts. She considers ice cream the “perfect medium” for any flavor combination. The milk there is as local and rich as you could hope to find and so is the flavor selection. She continues to push/completely ignore conventional boundaries in this haven of frosty confections and will always insist that the best flavors are yet to come. Care to test that theory?