To fight the sweltering heat of an East Coast summer — sweat sizzling on scorching pavement, commuters silently begging for a breeze on humidity-clogged train platforms — there’s nothing better than a cone of soft serve ice cream.
Once the province of neighborhood kids waving dollar bills at ice cream trucks — and more recently, given a flavor upgrade in an array of trendy Manhattan shops — the increasingly less humble treat now finds itself elevated to the status of the coolest staple on NYC’s high-end dessert menus, serving up sticky-fingered nostalgia for adult palates.
“There’s not many people that don’t like ice cream, right?” Brooklyn native Ayesha Nurdjaja, executive chef and partner at Shukette, told The Post.
But at the trendy Middle Eastern eatery, which celebrates its third anniversary in July, the $12 tower of tahini-flavored ice cream topped with halva floss, pomegranate and hazelnuts, known as The Mic Drop, is more than just a trend — it’s boosting the bottom line.
With even the most popular eateries having to work harder to stay financially viable in an era of rampant inflation, the quick and delicious fix of putting soft serve on a dessert menu — or even scrapping the rest of the menu entirely — has almost become the new normal.
“I think having pastry departments is not as lucrative as it used to be in restaurants,” Nurdjaja said.
Shukette is just one example of soft serve standing in for traditional fanciful desserts, as in-house pastry chefs become more scarce.
At Laser Wolf in Williamsburg, customers of Michael Solomonov’s rooftop hot spot wind down their prix-fixe Israeli grill dinners with a few ounces of brown-sugar soft serve topped with burnt date molasses and peanut butter puffs, also known as Bamba.
Soft serve doesn’t require a chef to craft each cup during service like pastries do, the restaurant’s food and beverage director, Brian Jackson, told The Post.
Instead, “it’s all in the prep,” with front-of-house employees dishing up the ice cream themselves from the machine and garnishing with toppings, signature or seasonal.
It’s a win-win, the eatery’s culinary director, Shaul Armony, said, as stuffed patrons aren’t typically craving a hefty dessert. The lighter soft serve, which began as a play on a traditional PB&J, has been a hit.
“When you get to the dessert portion, you kind of want it to be something simple and not too labor-intensive,” Jackson said. “There’s nothing better than a little ice cream to cool you off at the end of the meal.”
Elsewhere in the city, hungry New Yorkers hankering for their sweet-treat fix can find Yakult probiotic soft serve at Nolita’s Kimika, or head to hip Chinese fast-casual Milu on Park Avenue South for a cup of egg-tart soft serve topped with a caramelized puff pastry. And at Cote Korean Steakhouse in the Flatiron District, guests ordering a prix-fixe dinner can wind down with a cup of vanilla soft serve, drizzled with soy sauce caramel.
The trend is sweeping the country, too — those in Beverly Hills can dine on Spago’s white tablecloths and dig into a liquor-infused ice cream, while in Washington, DC, Nama Ko’s pastry chef Alex Levin dishes up a miso, honey and black-truffle soft serve.
“There’s something about soft serve that’s really comforting and satisfying,” said Nurdjaja of the trend.
The 18-year restaurant vet is clearly not the only one who feels that way — 90% of diners at Shukette stick around for dessert. Besides the tahini option, there’s the Orange Kush, a mandarin sorbet finished with dates, chocolate and sea salt.
“There’s a beauty in peeling back the layers of some fine dining and pretentious food,” said Nurdjaja.
