NYC's Latest Food Trend Combines Butter And Ice Cream (And TikTok Is Disgusted)

The James Beard Award-winning pastry chef Dominique Ansel leaves trends in his wake as he creates desserts and pastries across the U.S.. The famed inventor of the Cronut, the pastry that became an international sensation in 2013 and is still copied to this day, has opened a new bakery in NYC, Papa d'Amour. The bakery focuses on Asian treats with a French twist, one of which has been noticed by TikTok — the Hokkaido milk soft serve dipped in melted, salted French butter with a little mochi placed in the waffle cone.

On a recent TikTok where the poster tried the treat and proclaimed it to be good, the commenters, the majority of whom have not tried it, were skeptical. One commenter got right to the point with, "America is so gross." Never mind that the creator of this is from France, and combining ice cream with butter has been a thing in South Korea for a while. A few people were squeamish about the coating the butter would leave behind, with one commenting, "I just don't want butter coating my mouth like that."

A few commenters had tried it, with one saying, "It was disgusting. Plain, unflavored ice cream with a cold, hardened, salty butter shell. I literally just scraped the butter off and threw it in the gutter." In the end, as one commenter put it, "This sounds gross, but so did olive oil ice cream and it's my absolute favorite now so I know better than to judge."

While the attention seems to be mostly on the butter-coated soft serve, they do serve other treats at the new bakery. As one commenter on the TikTok video said, "I tried it, I get the pairing, but the actual vanilla ice cream isn't good. I was rather disappointed. The mochi donut there, on the other hand." Inspired by the dim sum dish, the taro puff, this mochi donut comes with a guava jam and is surrounded by taro with a crispy lace batter.

To drink, Papa d'Amour has iced soufflés. Yes, that is a drink. Available in chocolate or matcha, it's a soufflé foam with a hole that you pour the drink through. As the liquid goes in, the soufflé rises up over the edge of the glass.

Of course, there are "normal" pastries, too. To fill out your pastry box, you can get an egg tart with pretzel salt, steamed bao buns shaped like croissants, and a laminated brioche spiral with shallot oil, sticky rice, and shiitake mushrooms, topped with Kurobuta Japanese hot dogs glazed with honey soy.