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There’s a new, high-powered young dessert chef in town. And get this — he’s homegrown! His name is Joshua Gripper, and his new boss, A Voce’s Andrew Carmellini, vouches for him thusly: “He’s the shit.” Gripper, a 27-year-old Queens native, has worked with Carmellini at Café Boulud and is also a member of A.C.’s hip-hop combo, the Crown. Primarily, though, he’s said to be a talented technician with a simpatico sensibility and eight years of classical training. So what is he doing at A Voce?

“There’s a misconception about what you can do with Italian desserts,” Gripper says. “They say it’s very limited, but you can definitely take it to another level.” You can find his desserts on the menu at A Voce already, including a chocolate budino (pudding) with port-roasted figs and thyme sorbetti, and a honey-crisp-apple coppa, whose bottom level consists of limoncello gelatina with roasted apples and a butternut-squash zabaglione. Gripper, who comes to A Voce from DB Bistro Moderne, replaces April Robinson, who is bound for Spain.