Celebrated for her three-star sweets at L’Impero, Veritas, and JUdson Grill, Heather Carlucci-Rodriguez’s pastry chef résumé reads like a history of New York’s most esteemed eateries. She began her culinary education at the Restaurant School in Philadelphia before traveling to France to complete externships in Burgundy and Paris. Her first pastry position was at Tom Colicchio’s three-star Mondrian, and a subsequent pastry chef gig at Union Square Cafe soon followed, setting the tone for an illustrious career. Over the next 15 years she created desserts for Sign of the Dove, Monkey Bar, and Sushi Samba while also working as a pastry instructor at New York’s Institute of Culinary Education.

So imagine the food world’s surprise when Carlucci-Rodriguez decided to open an Indian restaurant. The pastry chef crossed over to the savory side when one of her students at ICE introduced her to Punjabi cuisine. She found the flavor and ingredient combinations beguiling. For her first personal venture, Carlucci-Rodriguez opened Lassi, a tiny takeout restaurant featuring Northern Indian home cooking that proves once and for all that her talents know no bounds. “Even though she is an unlikely Indian-restaurant owner, she’s a passionate one,” wrote Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld of New York magazine, adding, “Her food tastes unlike any other Indian restaurant in town—fresher, cleaner, but undiluted in its intricately spiced essence.”

But Carlucci-Rodriguez hasn’t forgone sweets altogether. According to Patronite and Raisfeld, the desserts at Lassi “fuse her old life and her new one.”