Pizza Today - October 2023 - 14

Man on the Street
Soft Serve
Explosion
Scott Wiener
Founder, Scott's Pizza Tours
and SliceOutHunger.org
Pizza is clearly my number
one food, but my second
favorite is ice cream. Th ey're
both simple on the surface but
much deeper upon examination.
Ice cream brings us back
to our youth, just like pizza. It's
not uncommon to see ice cream
or gelato in a pizzeria, but not
all shops have the real estate to
squeeze in the equipment. I've
noticed an interesting ice cream
solution popping up at hip new
shops across the country that
takes up less space, is easier to
serve, and makes it easier to customize
unique fl avors. It seems
like every new pizzeria I walk
into has a soft serve machine. At
fi rst, I thought it was just a quirk
at a few pizzerias, but the sight of
soft serve has become common
enough for me to think it might
be the next big thing.
Th e soft ice cream of my
childhood wasn't very good. It
was grainy and fl avorless, plus
it melted way too quickly. On
the contrary, soft serve I get at
pizzerias now is creamy and
sturdy, with stiff peaks that don't
disintegrate in the summer heat.
It's more like frozen custard than
the stuff you get from a Mister
Softee truck in New York City.
Pizzerias that serve soft ice
cream all seem to be of the
upscale variety, so they're springing
for the better machines and
higher quality ingredients. Th ese
are the pizzerias that obsess
over their fermentation process
and nitpick over the settings
on their ovens, so it's only fi tting
that they're extending the
concept to their dessert options.
Rather than buying gallons of
somebody else's hard ice cream,
they're creating their own
fl avors by adding fresh fruit,
concentrates, syrups, nut butters
and other natural fl avorings to a
soft serve base.
Just last week I had a
phenomenal swirl of pistachio
and cantaloupe at a pizzeria
in Brooklyn that creates new
fl avors every week. I love how
they're able to employ the concept
of seasonal rotation with
soft serve just as pizzerias do
on their pizzas. Th ey must love
it because I buy way more soft
14 / PIZZATODAY.COM / OCTOBER 2023
serve when I know I'm getting a
limited-edition fl avor that won't
be around next time I swing by.
For the operator, soft serve
has plenty of logistical benefi ts
over hard ice cream and gelato.
Th e machine takes up less space
than a reach-in freezer, so
all you need is some available
counterspace. Service is
faster because it doesn't require
scooping. Most machines have
just two fl avor banks, so the customer
doesn't spend 35 minutes
tasting and choosing between a
million diff erent fl avors. Th ere's
very little cleanup and maintenance
unless it's time to swap in
a new fl avor.
Just like with hard ice cream,
toppings are a fantastic way to
notch up your soft serve. Th e
fi rst time I experienced high end
soft serve at a pizzeria was about
12 years ago at Pizzeria Picco in
Larkspur, California. Th is was
the fi rst time I saw extra virgin
olive oil and fl aky sea salt on ice
cream. It was a serious revelation
for me because it combined the
humble experience of eating ice
cream with the upscale panache
of fancy unexpected toppings.
Th is past March, Chef Wylie
Dufresne opened Stretch Pizza
in Manhattan. Chef Dufresne is
known for his incredibly creative
and playful cooking methods,
so it should be no surprise that
Stretch's dessert menu features a
banana soft serve with optional
peanut butter dip and babka
breadcrumbs.
Pizza in general is becoming
more mature and thoughtful as
pizza makers dig deeper into
their process. It's a joy to see
that ice cream is doing the same.
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Pizza Today - October 2023

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