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The mangosteens are coming!

Forbidden? Not the Mangosteen
By DAVID KARP

LAS VEGAS, P.R.

PERCHED on a dizzyingly steep slope, in a lush landscape dotted with waterfalls and tall bamboo, Ian Crown celebrated the vindication of what he called his madness in a patch in the jungle. He rustled through the thick, glossy leaves of a nine-foot-tall tree, plucked a reddish-purple orb, cut around its equator, twisted off a hemisphere of thick rind, and popped a few delicate, snow-white segments into his mouth.

“I’ve waited so long for this moment,” he said in July, savoring the floral, sweet-tart flavor of one of the most delicious of fruits, and certainly the most hyped: the mangosteen.

For decades it has been famously, tantalizingly unavailable on the United States mainland, but Mr. Crown’s Panoramic Fruit Company has sent several test shipments in the past month to New York and Los Angeles. Sherry Yard, the pastry chef at Spago Beverly Hills, was thrilled to be able to taste a few. “This is like seeing a unicorn,” she said. More