Three eras of fro-yo, one obsessed city
Sometimes this column takes weeks, even months, to research, like when I went searching for cheap eats with a wad of dollar bills in my pocket and repeatedly came up empty. Other times, Where to Eat comes together in a day. That was the case this past month, when I threw on my favorite pair of shorts with an elastic waistband and met my friend Mike Chau in the West Village. The streets were slick with fro-yo, and we sampled nearly a dozen shops, some old, some new, in the span of a few hours. When you eat that way, the winners instantly stand out, even in the vast sea of frozen yogurt shops catering to Gen Z nostalgia and Millennials hungry for “Obama-era” desserts. The qualities of my favorite fro-yo shop, a chain from Madrid, shone against its competitors. So did the glitches at my least favorite newbie, across the street. It wasn’t easy narrowing it down to these three shops — especially because I’m lactose intolerant — but anything for the mission, right?
New York’s best frozen yogurtIf you follow me on Instagram, you’ve already seen our new series “Luke Hates Lines.” The idea is just what you’d imagine. After posing in front of restaurant lines around the city, we promptly move along to wonderful alternatives nearby where you can walk right in without a wait. Though, I’d be lying if I said the lines weren’t occasionally worth it: It happened at MYKA, a frozen yogurt chain from Madrid that recently opened in Greenwich Village. When I arrived the other day and saw the line was a fraction of its usual size, I pounced. Welcome to neo-fro-yo. The plain frozen yogurt, made with tangy goat milk kefir, is far and away the most tart in town, with a slightly astringent aftertaste, like spooning Greek yogurt right out of the tub. All the fashionable toppings are made by the owner, Natalia Morales, who is trained in French pastry: flaky shreds of baklava, crunchy kataifi and bitter orange compote. Choose certain toppings, and they’ll be carefully dolloped onto the sides, preserving the architectural integrity of your yogurt tower. Others, like honey, harden into satisfying shells, the peak jutting out from the cup like Alfalfa’s cowlick in “The Little Rascals.” 159 Seventh Avenue South (Perry Street), Greenwich Village, Manhattan
2010s fro-yoCulture opened in Park Slope during the first fro-yo boom, when shops like Pinkberry and 16 Handles were all the rage. And while there’s now a Pinkberry in Dubai, Gino and Jenny Ammirati, the owners of Culture, seem perfectly satisfied with their two tiny shops, run by nimble, college-age employees who can swirl your yogurt in the time it takes to fish out a credit card and pay. The frozen yogurt is supremely tart, almost silky, the result of the quality milk the owners source from a cooperative of local dairy farmers. (The milk, they told me, becomes fro-yo within two days of exiting the udder.) The toppings — flax seed, cubed strawberries and housemade granola — sit on the menu like time capsules from 2011. As much as I’d love to C.Y.O.A. — “choose your own adventure,” per the menu — I can’t stray far from old reliable: the classic plain flavor buried under a thick blanket of raspberry sauce. It’s a tart-lover’s dream. Multiple locations, Greenwich Village and Park Slope
20th century fro-yoRemember Forty Carrots? Decades before Pinkberry was a sparkle in its founder’s eye, the “frogurt” pioneer on the upper floors of the Bloomingdale’s stores in Manhattan already had lines that stretched through fragrances. (Back then, department store shoppers dove into this “health food” bar for soups of the day and whole-grain breads, eating frozen yogurt for dessert.) All these years later, it’s still home to the city’s largest cups of fro-yo at unbeatable prices. Even the smallest size, 12 ounces for $8, is too much for me. When Bloomingdale’s started serving frozen yogurt in 1972, it must have been the first place in New York, if not the entire Western Hemisphere, to do so. The mildly tart plain yogurt is still the most popular flavor, but there are other options — peanut butter and coffee, for instance — that rotate in and out. I like mine with a drizzle of the retro Melba sauce, a sickly sweet raspberry syrup named for the Victorian opera singer Dame Nellie Melba. Good luck finishing the whole thing. Multiple locations, SoHo and the Upper East Side, Manhattan Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have New York City restaurant questions? Send us a note here. Follow NYT Food on TikTok and NYT Cooking on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest.
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