These Chefs Just Want to Recreate the Magic of Dipping French Fries Into a Frosty

Because hot salty fries and cold creamy milkshake is a scientifically perfect combo.
Image may contain Food Creme Cake Icing Dessert Cream and Ice Cream
Courtesy of Freek's Mill

There are plenty of food power couples to get excited about: chips and salsa, cacio and pepe, mashed potatoes and gravy, rosé and everything. But there’s one that you probably haven’t had since your last road trip drive-thru dinner: a Wendy’s Frosty and French fries.

Through centuries of culinary innovation, it ranks high up there: the too-thick-to-drink-through-a-straw chocolate milkshake and its unlikely partner, an order of fries for dipping. The first time you try that scientifically perfect sweet-salty, hot-cold combination, you wonder why this isn’t a part of great American food holidays like, say, Thanksgiving. What I’m saying is: consider it!

Nearly 50 years after its debut on the original Wendy’s menu, the Frosty is getting a nod in the form of cheffy desserts. Here are some examples we’ve seen recently at restaurants around the country.

Turkey and the Wolf's soft serve with Potato Stix.

Instagram/turkeyandthewolf

Mason Hereford, chef-owner of fast and loose sandwich shop and #1 on Bon Appétit's Hot 10 List this year Turkey and the Wolf in New Orleans, grew up eating “a lot of fast food” makes a vanilla soft serve with homemade Magic Shell, Frosty-style.

Spotting a tin of Potato Stix in the grocery store aisle inspired the dessert: “The Magic Shell is just semisweet chocolate and coconut oil, which stabilizes and hardens like the store-bought version. We pour that over our vanilla soft serve, sprinkle with Potato Stix and a little salt on top, then decorate it with swag like funny flags and shit,” Hereford explains.

At neighborhood restaurant Freek’s Mill in Brooklyn, chef Chad Shaner serves a dessert that’s simply called “Frosty-n-Fries.” But it isn’t quite that simple.

“I lived in Italy for four years, so I wanted to make a Nutella gelato,” Shaner explains of the dessert pictured at the top of this page. “As soon as we tried it, I thought it tasted like a Frosty, and the rest is history.” He tops the Nutella gelato with homemade chocolate syrup and a flurry of house-made crisp shoestring potato sticks.

At Tasty n Alder in Portland, OR, a chocolate malt milkshake is served with hand-cut fries crisped in rice oil and beef tallow, with the menu explicitly specifying “dip em.” Two NYC spots have garnered buzz for their honey butter potato chip-and-ice cream concoctions: East Village Korean spot Oiji, which serves vanilla ice cream in a bed of the addictively sweet chips, and 375Fries, which tops vanilla soft serve with a handful of them.

Milkshake and Fries from Coolhaus.

Courtesy of Coolhaus

Even irreverent ice cream maker Coolhaus is pulling up to the drive-thru. This August, the Los Angeles-based brand debuts its Milkshake and Fries (aka “Fast Food”) flavor in scoop shops, and pints of it will be sold in stores this fall. The flavor pairs Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream with shoestring fries and chocolate malt balls.

The vegan shake at Champs Diner.

Instagram/champsdiner

The vegan crowd is in on it, too: Champs Diner in Brooklyn, NY, which has served a vegan chocolate French Fry Shake with fries plunged into the dairy-free CocoWhip topping. You really can have it all.

You can't beat salty-sweet: