There are plenty of places in New York where you can order a dirty Martini. Now, there’s one where you can eat one, too.
The team behind the popular cocktail bar Double Chicken Please has opened a new Lower East Side ice cream shop that’s treating soft serve with the same obsessive creativity that made its drinks famous. Called Unnecessary (with the “un” literally crossed out in the logo), the new spot on Delancey Street turns classic cocktails into frozen desserts, including a surprisingly savory dirty Martini swirl.
The signature flavor takes everything polarizing about the iconic drink and spins it into soft serve, combining olive, fennel, juniper and dry vermouth for an ice cream that’s briny, herbal and unexpectedly refreshing. It’s joined by equally inventive flavors like Garibaldi, inspired by the Italian aperitivo with orange, Campari and orange blossom, and Matcha Grasshopper, a grown-up take on mint chocolate chip made with fresh mint, white chocolate, coconut water and Shizuoka matcha. (Some flavors do contain alcohol, but others simply borrow a cocktail’s flavor profile.)
If that creative approach sounds familiar, it should. Double Chicken Please built its following by turning dishes like Key Lime pie, Japanese cold noodles and mango sticky rice into cocktails. Unnecessary flips that idea on its head, using drinks as inspiration and ice cream as the final form. The project comes from Double Chicken Please co-founders GN Chan and Faye Chen, alongside Frank Zheng, with Taiwanese ice cream chef Yu Lee leading the menu’s culinary side.
Created by Scott Kester Design, the shop’s interior resembles a mid-century living room, with cherry wood finishes, soft lighting and a ceiling installation inspired by artist James Turrell. It also doubles as a listening lounge, complete with custom speakers, vintage Hitachi amplifiers and regular DJ sets.
“The things we call unnecessary—whether it’s dessert, a drink with friends, a song or piece of art we really vibe with—are often the little things that make life feel a bit more memorable,” co-founder Frank Zheng said. “We wanted to build a place around that feeling and to have fun exploring the boundaries of what ice cream flavors can be.”
Unnecessary is now open at 66 Delancey Street from 1 pm to midnight, Tuesday through Sunday (it’s closed Mondays). Whether you’re a dirty Martini devotee or simply curious enough to see what olives taste like in soft serve, this might be the city’s most unexpected scoop of the summer.
