Content Warning: This article discusses eating disorders and may be triggering to some readers. If you or someone you know needs help, call the National Eating Disorders Association’s hotline at 800–931–2237.
It’s official—mushrooms are my new favorite dessert, and Nikki Arcé is to blame. The pastry chef is the mastermind behind Camellia, a vegan patisserie where the sweets are not too sweet and the flavors are decadently seasonal: think black tea fig brownies, apple brioche buns, and my freshly minted favorite—the Candy Cap Shroom Panna Cotta.
What, you might ask, is that? Picture a glammed-up, gluten-free version of an Oreo “dirt cup.” Instead of chocolate pudding, though, the base layer here is a creamy medley of cacao and candy cap mushrooms, topped with a thick layer of coconut shortbread “dirt” and the cutest-to-boot mushroom meringue.
It’s a confection that’s managed to both tickle my sweet tooth and blow my mind—one bite and I could swear it was sweetened with maple syrup, yet Arcé promises none was used. Those notes of warm, caramelized sugar? That, she insists, is all candy cap. Playful, balanced, and richly nuanced, it’s the kind of dessert that perfectly encapsulates Arcé’s mission: to get people excited about just how expansive vegan pastry can be.
“I’ve had people come up and say, ‘That can’t be vegan—it’s too pretty to eat!’” Arcé laughs. “And I’m like, ‘No, you’re in good hands—vegans can have pretty things too!’”
Part of what makes Arcé so talented as a pastry chef is her ability to embrace duality: aged teas share the spotlight with freshly picked produce, French techniques draw out Asian flavors. Her canelés may follow tradition in form, but don’t be fooled— they’re modernized with a vegan-friendly twist.
Arcé has long championed a mindset of multitudes in her personal life, as well. She’s proud of every layer that weaves through her identity, especially the ones that seem to contradict one another. Take the following: she’s Latina, but she knows more Japanese than Spanish. She’s tattooed in numbers, but she deeply, deeply hates math (more on that later). And perhaps most importantly, Arcé is a pastry chef who celebrates food, but she’s also sometimes afraid of it.
Throughout her life, Arcé has struggled on and off with orthorexia, an eating disorder characterized by an obsession with healthy food. “It’s tough because it wasn’t obvious,” Arcé says. “People can be very dismissive of it, like, ‘Oh, you’re just healthy.’ But if I had a bite of a cookie, I would freak out for five hours.” In college, her symptoms took a turn for the worse. Eager to pursue a lifelong passion for vegan food, Arcé enrolled in a nutrition program but the demands of the coursework—things like taking body measurements and calculating calories (there’s that math again!)—soon proved too much. “I felt afraid of food and decided something needed to change,” Arcé says.
Enter culinary school. It turned out to be the just-right fix. Without nutrition’s weight-centric curriculum, Arcé was free to pursue the culinary arts as just that—an art. In classes on French pastry and plant-based cuisine, she could feel herself reimagining food, seeing it less as a means for control and restriction and more as a craft, a vessel for creativity.
“There’s this hyper-fixation on food to be the best for people—like, ‘Is it healthy?’” Arcé says. “Culinary arts helped repair my relationship with food. It made me want to create something beautiful.” Alongside her classes, Arcé also began attending a support group for people struggling with disordered eating. Surrounded by strangers talking openly about their recovery journey, food assumed yet another layer in Arcé’s mind: it could be a space for community, a way to connect and share stories that don’t often get told.
“It was validating because it was everyone—people dealing with bulimia, anorexia, everyone—just sitting together and talking about food fears,” Arcé recounts. “And I was like, wow, I am afraid of food just as you are. You are afraid of food just as I am. We only have different behaviors and ways of showing it.”
At Camellia, Arcé weaves together these new ideas about food. Her ever-evolving menu is an homage to the creative mindset of culinary school—like an artist, Arcé forages for pastry inspiration everywhere, from childhood memories scented by cinnamon to farmers market stands and peaceful moments around a cup of tea.
Camellia, in part, is also an ode to the healing, nurturing power of food—slowly, it’s become the foundation for a community brought together by recovery. On social channels, Arcé emulates the warm vulnerability of her support group, writing candidly about her journey with disordered eating. It can be hard to be that open, Arcé admits, but it pays off in the deep connections she’s formed with people who share her story.
“At farmers markets, I’ve had people just come up to me telling me their own experience with disordered eating, and I’m like, ‘I just want to hug you now!’” Arcé says. “It’s also very interesting being upfront about it in the food industry because I’ve had managers, servers, bakers—a lot of bakers—who are like, ‘I also view food in this way,’ or ‘I’m afraid of the things that I serve, too.’ That kind of community has been therapeutic for me and for others.”
For Arcé, recovery will always be a work in progress, but these days, that feels less like a bad thing and more like something to be proud of. Remember that numbers tattoo? Scattered across Arcé’s right forearm, each digit is a different reading on the scale, a symbol that body weight is always changing. It’s a reminder that fears can sometimes lead to strength, and Arcé wears it like the badge of honor it is.
Find Camellia at King Farmers Market, Obon Shokudo, and pop-ups throughout the Portland area. For the most up-to-date news and drops, follow Arcé on Instagram at @camelliapistrina and sign up for pop-up notifications on Hot Plate.
