What does a Martini taste like as ice cream? Or a Grasshopper? Those are the questions behind Unnecessary, the latest concept from the team behind Double Chicken Please, opened in New York City on 26 June 2026. It is an idea that feels both unexpected and entirely logical coming from one of the world’s most influential cocktail bars — and one backed by some of the industry’s most respected names.
From Liquid to Frozen: How Cocktails Become Ice Cream
At the heart of Unnecessary is a simple inversion of perspective. For years, Double Chicken Please has built its reputation by turning food into cocktails. Signature serves such as Japanese Cold Noodle, Key Lime Pie, Cold Pizza, Mango Sticky Rice and Thai Curry reimagined familiar dishes in liquid form, helping propel the New York bar to No. 2 on The World’s 50 Best Bars list in 2023.
Unnecessary reverses that creative process. Instead of translating food into drinks, it transforms cocktails into ice cream. Not cocktail-inspired desserts, but frozen interpretations designed to capture the structure, balance and flavour profile of the original drink.
From Dirty Martini to Matcha Grasshopper
Few cocktails seem less suited to ice cream than the Dirty Martini — saline, bone-dry and unapologetically savoury. Yet Unnecessary turns it into a frozen dessert built around olive, fennel, juniper and dry vermouth.
The Matcha Grasshopper twists the classic mint-and-chocolate combination through fresh mint, white chocolate, coconut water and Shizuoka matcha.
Then there is the Garibaldi, inspired by the Italian aperitivo classic. Orange, bitters and orange blossom recreate the drink’s bittersweet profile in frozen form, preserving both its citrus brightness and floral lift. The obvious question follows: if guests order multiple flavours, what becomes the perfect pairing? Finding the answer is part of the experience.
Four Industry Heavyweights Behind the Project
The team behind Unnecessary reflects the ambition of the concept. Joining Double Chicken Please co-founders GN Chan and Faye Chen are Frank Zheng, formerly a consultant at Boston Consulting Group, who oversees the business strategy, and chef Yu Lee, the project’s culinary partner.
Lee is also the founder of Taiwan’s Ninao group and, together with bartender Johnny Tsai, won Glenfiddich’s World’s Most Experimental Bartender competition in 2018. The result is a project where the same level of technical thinking normally reserved for cocktails is applied to texture, flavour and frozen desserts.
An Ice Cream Parlour That Behaves Like a Cocktail Bar
Unnecessary has little interest in becoming a traditional ice cream shop. Rather than encouraging guests to grab a cone and continue walking, the space has been conceived as a bar in every sense. Visitors are invited to sit, linger and enjoy the experience at the same leisurely pace as they would over cocktails.
The interiors draw inspiration from mid-century living rooms, combining cherry wood, warm lighting and a contemporary chandelier influenced by the light installations of American artist James Turrell. The venue will open daily from 1 p.m. until midnight, offering not only ice cream but also music — from carefully curated playlists to live DJ sets supported by a high-fidelity sound system.
Why “Unnecessary” Might Be Exactly What We Need
The name is intentionally provocative. “Unnecessary is a little ironic” says Frank Zheng. “But it perfectly captures something we genuinely believe. The things we consider unnecessary — dessert, a drink with friends, a favourite song or a work of art — are often the moments that make life memorable. We wanted to create a place built around that feeling while exploring just how far we could push the flavours of ice cream.” Perhaps Unnecessary is, in the end, anything but. As Oscar Wilde famously observed: “In modern life, the superfluous is everything.”
Images courtesy of Unnecessary
