Wagamama Miso Caramel + Toffee Bao Nut

Wagamama miso caramel and toffee bao nut is estimated at £8.20 (est.) and carries 468 kcal, the indulgence peak of the bao nut trio. The panko fried bao around cold ice cream, drowned in the miso caramel that has become the dessert list's signature flavour, with toffee doubling the commitment, all of it vegan marked.

Miso in caramel does what salt does in salted caramel with a deeper voice: the fermented savoury note stops the sugar reading flat and keeps the spoon returning to check its own findings. Over the hot fried crumb and against the melting scoop, the sauce does its best work on the page, which is presumably why the kitchen gave this version the double toffee ending.

The trio's middle for calories at 468 kcal and its lowest for sugar at 30 g, a fact that surprises until the bitterness of miso is remembered; it displaces sugar rather than adding to it. The fat runs the trio's highest, the fry and the caramel conspiring. The pricing carries the page's usual asterisk: no published figure, the £8.20 (est.) estimate marked est.

How much is the miso caramel bao nut ends at the till as ever, and the real question, which dessert carries the miso caramel flag best, has three contenders on this page alone; this one wins on drama, the banana bread on comfort, the plain ice cream on purity.

Sharers should know the structural truth: a bao nut halves badly, the scoop escaping its shell at the first knife, so tables intending to split are better served asking for two spoons and taking turns at the whole. The mess is part of the theatre, but there is dignified mess and there is negotiation.

It follows rich mains badly and light ones gloriously, and it is the trio's best cold weather order. An espresso beside it does the cutting the toffee refuses to do for itself.