Innovators over at Bruno Pizza in New York City's East Village neighborhood are selling the frozen dessert for $5 a scoop. (Courtesy of Bruno Pizza NYC)
In what might be the most unlikely combination ever, a New York City restaurant has created pizza ice cream — well, pizza crust ice cream, to be exact. Innovators over at Bruno Pizza in the East Village are selling the frozen dessert for $5 a scoop, and while it normally comes in a bowl, restaurant proprietor Demian Repucci is happy to plop it atop a cinnamon-sugar pizza.
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The new menu item — which was recently also featured on The Chew — began turning heads after Scott’s Pizza Tours came through and ordered the franken-pie. Bruno’s uploaded a drool-worthy video of the scene to Instagram captioned, “Pizza crust flavored ice cream. Made in house yo!” — a quote from the tour’s leader, Scott Wiener. The clip quickly went viral and now has nearly 200,000 views.
Before you decide whether pizza crust ice cream is fab or drab, here’s what’s inside: fresh, organic wheat from a farm in Ithaca, New York, ground down to flour in Bruno’s basement mill. This is used to create plain dough, which, after baking in a wood oven, is completely ripped apart, toasted, and charred. The crispy bits are steeped in a gelato base overnight and when Repucci comes in the next day, he throws everything in an ice cream maker. Voila.
“It tastes toasty, malty, a little sweet,” the 46-year-old restaurateur told The Daily Meal, adding that he also sprinkles a bit of Maldon salt to add savory zest.
“I’m a huge fan of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal,” he laughed. “It reminds me of that.”
While at first the name might seem off-putting, customers love the zany dish. But this isn’t Bruno’s debut bread-based dessert — sourdough gelato has been on the menu for years. Repucci likens this dessert to sour cookie dough. Diners can also find stout beer, buttermilk, parsley, and milk-flavored scoops on the list.
“This fits into my want to explore the possibilities of flavor wherever I can,” Repucci said. “All the little hidden places where you can find flavor in simple foods, like pizza crust and gelato, in which you wouldn’t typically think to use the ingredients.”
If you’d like to try this crazy confection for yourself, you can find Bruno Pizza at 204 E. 13th St.