Fine dining and popsicles may seem like an odd combination, but a chef at one trendy restaurant in the city is serving up the frozen dessert on a stick.
“Everybody’s making popsicles,” says chef Jing Wen Ng of Nōksu (49 W. 32nd St., Koreatown; NoksuNYC.com), which has a 15-seat chef’s counter.
At the restaurant, which the Per Se alumna opened last fall at the 32nd Street entrance of the Herald Square subway station, she serves up an 11-course, $195 tasting menu with upscale pops as a palate-cleansing “pre-dessert.”
“It’s an unexpected dish,” Ng said. [people] Expect to be served popsicles while sampling the fine dining menu.
But this isn’t just any icebox pop: It comes in a traditional shape, but takes flavors of bergamot, shiso, and kaffir lime a few notches up: The popsicle is served in a little pool of yukkurut, an Asian-inspired yogurt drink, and garnished with bronze fennel, lemon balm, and coriander flowers.
“It feels very summery,” Ng said.
Here are five more great options for staying cool this summer.
Corn Okusu Ice Candy
NARO Terrace, 615 5th Ave., Rockefeller Center, Midtown, $11 at NaroNYC.com
At NARO, an upscale Korean restaurant in Rockefeller Center run by the team behind Atomix, the world’s 50 best restaurant in New York, you can dine on a $165 tasting menu in the main dining room, but on the more casual outdoor terrace you can order a Korean fried chicken sandwich ($16) topped with amber Kaluga caviar ($28) and finish off with a skewered dessert.
Pastry chef Luke Deardarf has created a variety of flavours over the years, but his current menu is delicious Instagram fodder: sweet corn ice cream with swirls of savoury corn jam moulded into the shape of an ear of corn. The same mould is used to create burnt corn cookies, also filled with chocolate ganache.
“It’s summer,” enthuses Deardarf, who describes himself as “a white guy from Ohio.” He’s pleased the dessert has been embraced by everyone from Midwestern tourists to visitors and colleagues from South Korea, where corn is hugely popular in many forms, including pre-packaged ice cream sandwiches studded with corn.
Kulfi Pop
Junoon, 19 W. 24th St., $16 at JunoonNYC.com
End your meal at this acclaimed, upscale modern Indian restaurant with a refreshing sampling of the Indian frozen dessert known as kulfi. Pastry chef Gustavo Tsok creates four flavors of kulfi: Alphonso mango, rose petal, ube and saffron cardamom. Served on a beautiful wooden board custom-made for the purpose, the kulfi is “like a tapestry.” “You can’t take it off the menu,” Tsok said of the popular pop. “There will be a revolt.”
Gola
Jazba, 207 2nd Ave., East Village, $14 at JazbaNYC.com
Jazba, a more casual spot from the Junoon team that opened in the former Momofukusam location last fall, recently added a frozen dessert to its menu: instead of kulfi, it serves up gora, a treat made from finely shaved ice compressed into a popsicle shape. “It feels just like snow,” says Jazba. [hand-cranked] “It’s made with a machine we brought from India,” says Tsoc, noting the similarities between the dessert and one served in his native Guatemala. The golas are served unadorned, with four little squeeze bottles of syrup in flavors ranging from black plum to rose, which customers add themselves.
Inspired by ice cream trucks
The Press Club Grill, 1262 Broadway, Koreatown, $16 at PressClubGrill.com
At Franklin Becker’s new Italian steakhouse, one of the desserts is inspired by the strawberry shortcake Good Humor bars Becker used to eat growing up in Brooklyn: strawberry sorbet and sweet cream ice cream, coated in a nostalgic cookie crumble.[We] “We’ve taken strawberry shortcake to new heights,” Becker says. “If we can evoke childhood memories with a dessert menu, that’s great.”
Paleta Cocktail
$19 at El Lugar Cantina, 30 W. 30th St., Chelsea, ElLugarCantina.com
The glitzy El Rugar, which opened earlier this year, sells popsicles aimed specifically at adults: Mexican-inspired paletas, a collaboration with popular dessert company La New Yorkina, come in flavors like rum and coconut and spicy tequila and mango, and are served alongside stronger cocktails, like the mango nectar and tequila cocktail (above).
