Lurpak butter, tinned sweetcorn, soy sauce, toothpaste. No, that’s not a discarded groceries list – that is but some of the flavors in The Ice Cream Project, an annual pop-up by British fashion brand Anya Hindmarch.
Now on its fifth edition, the campaign has fans queuing around the block for the Belgravia cafe, with some waiting hours to buy a scoop or a tub of the novelty ice creams. While some flavors might sound bizarre, the Anya treatment makes them far more palatable. That Kikkoman soy sauce, for example, is actually toasted sesame, laced with a hint of soy.
Other varieties are more easily explained: ginger nut biscuit, chocolate milkshake, and Scottish shortbread. In true AM style, a line of limited edition merchandise, emblazoned with slogans such as ‘brain freeze’ and ‘unexpectedly delicious,’ are also on sale at The Ice Cream Project cafe.
In New York, the love for the unconventional is strong, too. At Columbian fine dining restaurant Elcielo, led by executive chef Juan Manuel Barrientos, the tasting menu features a curious homage to the Amazon rainforest: ant ice cream. Using leafcutter ants, which feed on lemongrass, the dessert is citrusy and lemon-like, with a scattering of Amazonian ants for a finishing textural crunch.
At L’abeille à Côté in Tribeca, it is black truffles that get the ice cream treatment. Prized in international culinary cultures for its rich, earthy flavors, the truffle is infused into ice cream to create a savory signature dessert.
The enduring popularity of the bizarre and brilliant flavors extends beyond ice cream, too. Heston Blumenthal was among the first to trailblaze obscure dishes in contemporary fine dining, most famously in his ‘meat fruit’ starter. Inspired by historic royal banquets which delighted kings and queens by disguising one food with another, Blumenthal’s signature dish is presented as a whole mandarin, but once sliced into, reveals a chicken liver and foie gras parfait.
While Blumenthal’s London restaurant has announced its impending closure after 15 years at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, a new generation of chefs are carrying the creative baton. Newly opened Lilibet’s – named in homage to the late Queen Elizabeth II who was born on the restaurant’s site and took ‘Lilibet’ as her childhood nickname – for example, has made something of a signature out of its anchovy eclair.
The starter is fashioned to look identical to a French choux pastry, but in place of the classic Chantilly cream filling and dark chocolate glaze, it is filled with anchovy parfait, topped with sweet and sour sauce, and finely sliced anchovy slithers.
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Drinks too, have undergone the avant garde treatment. While the dirty martini has long been a cocktail list staple, as its popular culture status grows, so too does the scope for outlandishly savory garnishes. At new London bar Brutes of Mayfair, a DIY martini list lets drinkers choose between blue cheese olives, pickled onions, loaded chips, caviar bumps, and more.
Still consider yourself a fan of the simpler things amid a world of changing tastes? Fear not, the classics aren’t going anywhere – according to the International Dairy Foods Association, chocolate and vanilla remain Americans favorite ice cream flavors.
