Posted by Kathy YL Chan, August 1, 2008 at 6:00 PM
Olive oil gelato, while justly delicious, seems to be the only thing everyone talks about with regards to dessert at Otto. Let us not forget that there remains a plethora of sublime flavors deserving equal attention: salty caramel, hazelnut stracciatella and balsamic strawberry, just to name a few. And how can we neglect other desserts, like the brioche sandwiches, coppettas and my current favorite, the black and white. This aptly named creation features alternating layers of milk chocolate chip and creme fraiche gelato, with crackly shards of hazelnut brittle. Warm chocolate sauce and a generous turn of plush caramel crema make it perhaps a touch too indulgent—but then again, is indulgence not the purpose of dessert?
Otto
One Fifth Avenue, New York City NY 10003 (nr. Eighth Street; map)
212-995-9559
Posted by Ed Levine, June 27, 2008 at 12:45 PM
Over on Serious Eats we've asked folks to help us settle controversies surrounding strawberry ice cream (whether it's wonderful or not) and vanilla ice cream (whether the vanilla bean specks are a sure sign of superior vanilla ice cream). Who better to weigh in, with her considerable cred in this area, than Otto's resident gelato and sorbetto genius, Meredith Kurtzman? Kurtzman is the gelato-maker who has given us the heavenly olive oil flavor available at Mario Batali's pizzeria and enoteca.
Ed,
I'd like to throw my hat into the strawberry ice cream ring. We're using local strawberries—no frozen bits—and it's a contender I think. The fragrance that you get from vanilla beans cannot be matched by extract. I'll stand by this until someone shows me the money. Also,this week at Otto, very creamy cantaloupe and nectarine sorbets. More summer fruit in the pipeline (if I only could afford to make raspberry).
Regards,
Meredith, Otto
Otto: 1 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10003 (at 8th Street; map); 212-995-9559
Posted by Kathy YL Chan, June 24, 2008 at 2:45 PM
Editor's note: In 2006 New York magazine published an indispensable guide to ice cream sandwiches in New York City. While that guide set a solid bar, much has changed in the last two years. To update that list for the summer of 2008, we sent Sugar Rush correspondent Kathy YL Chan out to find the best ice cream sandwiches in New York City. Here is her report. —Zach
In the last seven days I've eaten more ice cream sandwiches than I care to confess, all in an attempt to find our city's ten best ice cream sandwiches. I searched and I ate—from the Lower East Side to the West Village, from DUMBO to Park Slope, from market to restaurant to ice cream shop, even at a department store. Oh man, did I eat. Chocolate-flecked vanilla sandwiched between brownies, crisp chocolate chip cookies packed with strawberry ice cream, creamy scoops of gelato tucked into brioche buns: Nothing was left untouched. Some were bigger than my fist, while others were just about the size of a silver dollar. This city offers ice cream sandwiches in more forms than you dare imagine, but it's for the best—there's something for everyone. After the jump, our ten favorites, in no particular order.
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Posted by Ed Levine, August 4, 2006 at 9:21 AM
These last few days have almost done me in. So I've been treating myself to one scoop of ice cream a day (no more, no less, given my "eat less" diet, which has me down 40 pounds). Here are my NYC faves:
1. Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory: Old-fashioned American, not particularly high in butterfat, ice cream.
2. Otto cart in Washington Square Park: The cheapest way to sample Meredith Kurtzman's amazing gelato.
3. Shake Shack: I know it's a cliché, but the frozen custard here rocks, and the ice cream and shake only line is consistently short.
4. Il Laboratio de Gelato: Where Ciao Bella (see below) founder Jon Snyder now plies his trade.
5. Ciao Bella: It's still pretty damned fine, even without Snyder, especially the malted milk ball.
6. Cones: I love the fruit-based gelati and sorbetti here. Bleecker Street, just east of Seventh Avenue South.
7. Eli's: Eli is a ganef, but the man knows how to make great food.
8. Creme Cremaillere: Try the Mission Fig. Sold by the scoop at Manhattan Fruitier, 29th Street, between Park and Lex.
9. Emack & Bolio: I know they're from Boston, but the ice cream is really good.
10. Eddie's (Maspeth): For old time's sake.
Have I missed any?
Häagen-Dazs is by far my favorite mass-produced ice cream, a rare example of a formerly boutique brand that's maintained its quality standards after being bought.
Posted by Ed Levine, July 4, 2006 at 11:15 AM
When it's July 4th weekend and it's this hot, a man's thoughts turn to ice cream.
With the temperature and humidity levels ridiculously high this weekend, I am pleased to report that the Otto ice cream cart is back at the NW corner of Washington Square Park. I ordered a half lemon, half coconut cup last week and got a half lemon, half vanilla instead, but it didn't matter. This is truly great ice cream, made by Meredith Kurtzman at Otto, where the gelati and sorbetti are almost uniformly sublime. Otto is definitely one of the great NY ice cream spots.
Here are my other favorites:
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Posted by Ed Levine, October 28, 2005 at 2:03 PM
Every year Mario Batali donates a progressive dinner for the fund raising auction at my son's former school. This year the winning bidders and I had an antipasto course standing at Otto, three small pasta courses (preceded by a tiny salad) at Lupa , and a main course and dessert at Babbo . Full disclosure: Mario, his wife, and I are friends. We have known each other for ten years.
Even at 6 p.m. Otto was a noisy swirl of activity. Twenty-somethings were everywhere except our table. We had three cheeses, served with honey dotted with little pieces of black truffle (stupendous), six little bowls of delicious vegetables and a wooden platter of salumi that featured excellent salami, prosciutto, testa (housemade headcheese) and loma, cured pork loin.
At Lupa we started with a tiny hill of spectacular pear and watercress salad studded with pomegranate seeds. The pasta courses were cloud-light gnocchi with sausage, a linguine with clams made with a basil sauce that had no cheese or nuts, making it unpesto-like, and finally a garganelli with a pork braciole ragu with black truffles. All three pastas were exemplary, marred only by the kitchen's tendency to use a little too much ground black pepper.
At Babbo I had the pork chop, made with richly marbled Berkshire pork, two and half inches high, and brined to maximum tenderness. If there's a better pork chop on the planet I haven't had it.
Dessert was a cavalcade of pastry chef Gina DePalma's creations: pumpkin cheesecake, cranberry and pecan budino (spice cake) topped with cinammon ice cream, the pistachio-chocolate semifreddo, a saffron panna cotta, and a selection of six ice creams and sorbets served in three pairs of shot glasses.
Babbo is still my favorite restaurant in New York. It has the kind of glow and energy level that every restaurant in the world aspires to. You feel good just being there, sitting, eating and drinking with friends, being well-attended to, even as the music cranks louder and louder with every passing hour.
