New York gourmet dessert trucks go stationary

Much virtual ink has been spilled about New York's food truck renaissance, but now there's a new twist to the gourmet meals-on-wheels trend: no wheels. In the last month, two of the city's most popular food trucks have opened real brick-and-mortar restaurants.


Dessert Truck(6 Clinton Street), one of the first establishments to ignite the food truck craze, ceased its rolling late last year. A few weeks back, it opened DessertTruck Works in a narrow storefront on the Lower East Side, a few blocks from the Hotel on Rivington. The new menu features the same upscale snacks that made them famous -- warm chocolate bread pudding with bacon custard sauce, vanilla creme brulee -- along with Counter Culture coffee and some new, coffee-sized treats like mini chocolate-prailine cakes.


Now Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream(632 Manhattan Avenue, Brooklyn), the roving band of ice cream purveyors that put Mister Softee to shame with ingredients like imported Ceylon cinnamon and local red currant, have settled down with a flagship store of their own in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. In addition to the cold stuff, they've added Intelligentsia Coffee and fresh baked goods like blood orange olive oil cake. Unlike DessertTruck, Van Leeuween's trucks are still operational, so you can track them down via their Twitter feed, or visit the new store, a quick subway ride from East Village hotels like the Cooper Square Hotel.


- Brendan Spiegel of Endless Simmer


[Flickr/Global Voyager]