When it comes to food, more isn’t always better.

Think of a bucket of fried chicken. In principle, it’s abundant and bountiful and saliva-inducing in the way only a fried chicken bucket can be, but dig in, and you’ll find every piece below the top few soggy and sweaty from the steam trapped between the layers. Or picture a buffet line, with hordes of people piling disparate dishes on their plates, with no regard for flavour combination or textural balance. (Crispy chicken tenders and prawn tempura wouldn’t do well next to gravy-heavy beef stew, for instance.) Or watch the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest, with mounds of phallic hot dogs and pale, starchy buns set on a table, just waiting for Joey Chestnut and Kobayashi to destroy them.

So you see, abundance, while theoretically desirable, isn’t always delightful. More than that, sometimes, it even elicits feelings of disgust.

The worst offender of this has to be the continental breakfast. Here’s the typical situation I get into: I usually start off well, giddy with excitement. I mean, there are towering trays of bacon and hash browns, rotary dispensers with 6 different kinds of cereals, plates of cold cut salami and cheeses, a conveyor toaster that is always so much fun to play with, and the compulsory egg station making omelettes and sunny-side ups as fresh as you can get them. What’s not to like?

But then I do my rounds, and the pristine picture starts to fall apart. The bacon and hash browns are limp and soggy, squished from the weight of the stack. The cornflakes and cocoa pops taste nothing like the ones you’re used to, because they come from a nameless brand. The conveyor toaster is set too low so it doesn’t brown your toast enough, but when you put it in for a second pass it becomes burnt beyond belief. And the egg station is manned by that one chef that clearly doesn’t want to be there, plus he keeps getting your order wrong. (I said everything EXCEPT peppers, damnit.)

But sometimes, just sometimes, more can be better.

And high on the mountaintop of plenty, sitting on the Iron Throne of Abundance, is Ottolenghi. Walk past any Ottolenghi restaurant in London, and you’ll find piles of pastries and mounds of maftoul and moghrabieh, trays of tabboulehs reflecting the rays of spring sun shining through the windows, and an island filled with bundt cakes, chocolate slices and tahini-flecked patisseries oozing with childish delight.

Maybe it’s the way they’ve styled their spread—seemingly laissez-faire but clearly done with intention. Maybe it’s the Greek touches in their salads and the Asian influences in their patisseries (influenced by Helen Goh, no less). Or maybe it’s the vibe that they manage to convey, that they actually care about food and flavour. Because despite the stigma we have against buffet towers and soggy salad spreads, Ottolenghi has somehow managed to flip convention, and make abundance in vogue. More than that, they’ve blazed a trail and started a revolution of sorts. Because in virtually every city in the world, you’ll find Otto-wannabe bakeries and cafes, piling their pastries, stacking their salads, making the concept of plenty cool again.

So yes, at times, abundance can be desirable. Maybe even enticing, and definitely indulgent. So here I am, channeling too the spirit of Ottolenghi, through this monster dessert I call a macadamia mound tart. Because really, when you’re faced with a gleaming heap of candied, toasted macadamia, barely held together in a rough-puff flaky tart crust that shatters under the softest bite, abundance begins to make sense.