Chefs throw herbs, veggies into the mix as ice-cream flavors mushroom into savory trend

Nation's Restaurant News, Feb 25, 2002 by Florence Fabricant

Chocolate? Vanilla? Strawberry? Of course. But olive oil? White truffle? Ice-cream flavors have gone around the bend. There isn't an herb or vegetable in the kitchen that is immune from treatment in the ice-cream maker.

Not that we've started to see white-truffle ice-cream sundaes with hot-fudge sauce and whipped cream or anything quite as bizarre as that. When herbs, vegetables, and other savories and seasonings find their way into the quenelle-shaped scoop on the plate, it's usually to offer a subtle counterpoint or flavor, coolness and smooth texture to complement a composed plate.

Often it's a cheese course or a sweet-savory combination that's a bridge between the main course and dessert. Sometimes it's the appetizer or even an actual dessert for those who can do without chocolate or vanilla.

Thus, La Toque in Rutherford, Calif., has hazelnut-black truffle ice cream served with a truffled date compote. Or at Restaurant Serenade in Chatham, N.J., a poached pear in Sauternes comes with Roquefort ice cream and caramelized walnuts for a play on the classic sweet wine and blue cheese pairing.

Tra Vigne in St. Helena, Calif., updates cherries jubilee with a red wine-mission fig jubilee, which is combined with basil gelato and shaved chocolate. The Dining Room in the Ritz-Carlton Buckhead in Atlanta goes strictly savory and spicy in a first-course tuna carpaccio with wasabi ice cream and warm chorizo cheesecake. Forget the wasabi ice cream for a moment. What about chorizo cheesecake?

Trio in Chicago serves Parmesan consomme with a scoop of olive oil ice cream and a garnish of coarse black pepper and nicoise olives. The restaurant recently had a white truffle menu, on which was a walnut and white truffle honey baklava plated with white truffle ice cream.

At Victor's in the Ritz Carlton in New Orleans, freshwater prawns come with an exotic fruit compote and peanut satay ice cream, cilantro-and-olive-oil ice cream is alongside Gulf shrimp with a blood orange salad, and a bitter chocolate torte is combined with coriander ice cream.

At Spring in Chicago a roasted white nectarine tart comes with Tahitian vanilla bean-salsify ice cream, and a chocolate honeycomb is served with fennel ice cream, fresh yuzu and citrus confit. They make the apple pie ice cream served with spiced maple drizzle and candied maple pecans at Roxanne's in Larkspur, Calif., seem downright commonplace.

The Polo Grill in Tulsa, Okla., serves tapioca pudding with sweet corn ice cream, pineapple, sage and caramel syrup. At 160 Blue in Chicago, a baby Hawaiian baked pineapple comes with pina colada ice cream and roasted coconut. In a similar vein Atlas in Manhattan has tequila ice cream with vanilla-roasted pineapple and sesame ice cream alongside the kumquat confit.

Earl Grey flavors the ice cream served with a napoleon of black mission fig puree atop a lemon tart at Twelve 12 in Chicago. And at Bamb in Miami Beach, Fla., a warm bittersweet chocolate cake calls not for a scoop of vanilla, hazelnut or caramel, but one of red bean. The customer can -- and often does -- request a different flavor.

And even without a complex array of tastes on the plate, dessert-eaters looking for an alternative to chocolate and vanilla have several choices at the new TanDa in New York. Some of the ice cream and sorbet flavors are rose petal-kumquat, charred mango-turmeric and peppered coconut.