Openings

Ice-Cream Sandwiches: Mia Dona Does Cart, Melt Bakery Plans Store

Starting today, and every weekday from 3 p.m. onward, Mia Dona is putting a cart outside of the restaurant that will sell $6 gelato sandwiches consisting of either pistachio or ricotta gelato in between sugared brioche buns. And there’s more news in the world of ice-cream sandwiches: Julian Plyter of Melt Bakery (which launched at the Hester Street Fair about a month ago) tells us that he just started making his own ice cream (he used to get it from Laboratorio) and will be selling some popular varieties (chocolate-chip-walnut cookie with vanilla ice cream; salted-peanut cookie with Guinness-stout ice cream; brown-butter-bourbon shortbread with peach ice cream) at Santos Party House this Friday and Saturday, and perhaps regularly in the future now that Nick Morgenstern’s “Patty House” is kaput. Not only that, but he plans to open a brick-and-mortar location in the coming months.

Plyter has served as a sous-chef at Lever House and more recently as a pastry chef at the Crosby Street Hotel. He and his partner Kareem Hamady (a finance guy who has worked at Lehman and Bloomberg) are currently scouting downtown locations and “playing with menu ideas” that will expand Melt Bakery’s product line past ice-cream sandwiches. Meanwhile, Plyter is baking his cookies (and making his ice cream) in the kitchen of Broadway East, which has closed its dining room for the summer. Good to hear the kitchen, at least, is still being put to good use.

Ice-Cream Sandwiches: Mia Dona Does Cart, Melt Bakery Plans Store