Dessert can be a showstopper — literally. It’s usually the last thing eaten in a meal, making it the actual end of the show, and the item that has the best chance of leaving a lasting impression. In these days of experiential dining, when guests need to be dazzled if they’re going to sit down in your restaurant for a meal, a multifaceted, colorful finale is often in order. Hence the resurgence of the sundae.
“Sundaes were the ultimate reward in childhood,” said Zac Young, the pastry chef and TV personality behind Zac Young’s Sprinkletown Donuts & Ice Cream at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. “You hit the ball in T-ball — not me, but, you know, someone did — you got taken out for a sundae. It was your birthday; you got a sundae. It’s probably the ultimate nostalgic treat.”
And sundaes are becoming more popular, available in 15.3% of restaurants in the U.S. as of the third quarter of 2025, according to Technomic’s Ignite Menu data. That’s a significant bump from 13.7% five years ago.
Young originally wanted Sprinkletown to be a “choose-your-own-adventure” concept.
A sundae from Zac Young’s Sprinkletown Donuts & Ice Cream at Foxwoods Resort Casino. | Sprinkletown Donuts & Ice Cream
“I wanted you to feel like a kid in the candy store and come in and have all of the toppings and all of the sauces and all of the magic shells and all of that,” he said. But he soon learned that having so many choices was overwhelming. “A percent of the population wants to dive in and play, and then there’s the rest who just want to be told what to get.”
So he created seven curated sundaes, including the Fluffer Nutella, inspired by the Fluffernutter sandwich of his childhood growing up in New England, made of peanut butter and marshmallow topping. The sundae is made with a choice of chocolate or vanilla soft serve — or a combination — topped with Nutella, graham crackers, and toasted marshmallows.
Another option is The Unicorn, which has strawberry sauce, cotton candy-flavored popping candy, Lucky Charms marshmallows, and a house-made crunchy blueberry shell in the style of Magic Shell.
Blueberry is, in fact, one of the most trending sundae toppings, appearing on 20.6% more sundaes than it did a year ago, according to Technomic. Other fast-growing toppings are pistachio, up 25.9%; pretzels, up 21.7%; and gummies, up 21.6%.
The sundae at Palladino’s Steak & Seafood in New York City is a do-it-yourself deconstructed banana split. | Palladino
Young makes several shells; the blueberry one is made with dried, powdered blueberry, and cocoa butter as key components.
“It’s not just a party trick; it adds texture,” he said, adding that the key to making it is using a fat, like cocoa butter, that’s liquid when heated but solidifies when chilled.
“Traditionally, palm shortening is used, but I use cocoa butter as the base because it solidifies quickly and tastes better than palm shortening,” he said, adding that it also sounds better.
Sprinkletown sundaes can also be ordered on a base of watermelon sorbet, including the curated What A Melon topped with miniature chocolate chips and freeze-dried strawberries.
“My favorite is The Piescream Cone, a play on the PieCaken,” he said, referring to his signature dessert of pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and spice cake layered with cinnamon buttercream. “It has apple pie filling, graham cracker crust, candied pecans, and salted caramel.”
Young said sundaes should be conceptualized like any plated dessert.
“It’s the same things that we’re looking for, which are textures, balance — all of these elements that you want to work in harmony with each other,” he said. “So at the end of the day, you could consider it a very fancy dessert because you’re constructing it the same way.”
It is indeed a fancy dessert at Palladino’s Steak & Seafood, which opened in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal in September.
The Fortune Cookie Sundae at House of the Red Peal in New York City. | House of the Red Pearl
Executive chef Sam Hazen developed it as a sort of do-it-yourself deconstructed $22 banana split. It starts with a choice of chocolate or vanilla soft serve — or a swirl, just as at Sprinkletown — and it’s accompanied by caramelized butterscotch sauce, hot fudge sauce, banana crumble made with the same components as a wafer cone but with banana essence added, little pineapple meringues, cherries braised in Kirsch, and crushed peanut butter brittle mixed with chocolate-covered popping candy, “so you’ve got a little fun in your mouth while you’re eating it,” Hazen said.
All of the components are served tableside so guests can assemble it themselves.
“It’s probably the most popular dessert on the menu,” Hazen said. “It’s eye-catching, it’s delicious, it’s fun, it’s conversational.”
Palladino’s is a steakhouse, so an all-American sundae like the banana split makes sense. Along similar lines, House of the Red Pearl, a Chinese-inspired restaurant in New York’s Seaport District, offers a Fortune Cookie Sundae, made with fortune cookie-flavored ice cream (made by steeping crushed fortune cookies in ice cream base), orange blossom meringue, chocolate fudge, almond whipped cream, mochi, and almond brittle. It’s topped with an oversized fortune cookie. The $16 dessert is reportedly a consistent guest favorite and also one of the most-photographed desserts on the menu.
Crying Tiger, a Southeast Asian restaurant that Lettuce Entertain You recently opened in Chicago, offers a $12 Toasted Coconut Sundae. The base is a sorbet made of coconut purée that’s then topped with toasted coconut flakes and a syrup of palm sugar infused with pandan.
“We use palm sugar for its natural, dark flavor and thicker texture,” pastry chef Juan Gutierrez said. It’s topped with peanuts that have been simultaneously toasted and caramelized.
Savory elements in sweets is an enduring trend that chef de cuisine Peggy Tan made use of in the summer of 2024 at The Wild in San Francisco with her caviar sundae.
It’s actually served as a $38 appetizer, but it’s inspired by the sweets that Tan ate growing up in Singapore.
“Every day after school, there was an ice cream cart parked right outside the gate,” she said. “The vendor would slice blocks of ice cream with a knife and sandwich them between rainbow-colored bread, all for about 80 cents. My favorite flavor then, and still now, was corn ice cream.”
The Toasted Coconut Sundae at Crying Tiger in Chicago. | Crying Tiger
Corn is used in many sweet applications in Asia.
For her ice cream, Tan uses local Clover milk and enriches it with Kendall Farm’s crème fraîche, “which adds tang and depth,” she said. Then she blends it with peak-season yellow corn from G&S Farms, along with sugar, egg yolks, and a little stabilizer. Then it’s topped with Kaluga caviar and fermented white asparagus.
“The caviar brings a savory, umami richness that balances the sweetness and subtle tang of the corn ice cream,” Tan said. “Its creamy pearls hold their own alongside the ice cream’s texture, so neither element gets lost. The fermented white asparagus adds an entirely different dimension, crunch, salinity, and bright acidity, helping to refresh the palate between bites of the richer components.”
A more traditional sundae can be had at The Parliament, which opened in Midtown Manhattan in November serving modern American fare. The Parliament Sundae is made with local Il Laboratorio del Gelato vanilla topped with toasted peanuts, malted chocolate sauce, chunks of brownies and rolled chocolate sticks, all topped with a Luxardo cherry. It’s $16, and very popular according to executive chef Rakmin Lee.
Of course presentation is an essential part of all eating, especially desserts, and although sundaes are naturally appetizing, the timeframe in which they photograph well is short. Young helps mitigate that at Sprinkletown by putting sauce in the bottom as well as the top and serving the sundaes in clear containers.
“Sauce on the bottom does two things: The sundae is prettier longer, but also when you just pile all the toppings on top, you get through that and you’re left with just ice cream, and you kind of want the sundae experience throughout.”
Hazen of Palladino’s said that, although sundaes might seem like something for kids, that’s part of the magic:
“I can close my eyes and eat it and feel like I’m 12 again.”
Contact Bret Thorn at [email protected]
