Hot And Cold Ice Cream ‘Roti’ Cones From Prague Great Fun To Eat

What are chimney cones? They're a popular street dessert from Prague — imagine a more atas version of our local ice cream sandwich, but served in a conical bready pastry. The smoking 'chimney' effect comes from the melding of cold soft-serve ice cream on warm, freshly baked cones, although in our climate, that hot and cold combo quickly turns into a melting mess. The good news is the firm bready pastry cones are resilient and won’t sag or turn soggy. Popular European dessert chain Good Food Coffee & Bakery from Prague already has franchises in seven countries, including China and Dubai, and now it's here in Singapore, at VivoCity. If the dessert looks familiar, that’s because it isn’t exactly new here. Previous iterations include the now-closed Chimney.SG at Scape*. Despite a less-than-stellar history here, Good Food Coffee & Bakery franchisee Rayner is still confident his chimney cones will fair well. “I think Singaporeans will love it.

According to Rayner, some chimney cones are deep-fried like doughnuts. The ones at Good Food Chimney have a more bread-like texture and are baked in an electric grill instead. Balls of dough, made fresh daily with locally sourced flour and a “secret ingredient” from Prague, are lightly greased with sunflower oil, hand rolled into long tubes and wrapped around a cone-shaped baking spit. The uncooked dough cones are then rolled in granulated sugar and baked in a small rotisserie-like combi oven for five minutes at 250 degrees till the surface caramelises and turns golden-brown. House made, locally sourced 40 per cent dark Belgian chocolate is piped in to plug the hole at the bottom of the cone, which is then dusted with your nutty condiment of choice and cooled before being served.

Okay, so it may not be quinoa-healthy. But, according to Rayner, his version is “healthier” than your average desserts. For a start, the ice cream has no preservatives and is made fresh every day, as is the chocolate and vanilla fresh cream. The soft serve is made with low-fat Meiji milk and has a sugar content is less than 25 per cent, almost half of the cones served in Prague to cater to Singaporeans’ tastebuds. The black yoghurt soft serve also uses activated charcoal, and is supposed to aid digestion. And, of course, the cones are baked not fried.

The conservative method

Shovel your way through the soft-serve with a spoon till you get to the bottom then enjoy the ice cream drenched cone on its own.

The practical method

Have your chimney and eat it. As you lick your way through the soft serve, unfurl the pastry with your fingers. Rinse and repeat.

The anyhow method

Enjoy a mouthful of ice cream and pastry by opening as wide as you can and chomp your way down. Or start from the bottom and eat your way up. Messy, but also the most satisfying way to eat this.

Located next to Dian Xiao Er and a couple of shops down from a Yole outlet at VivoCity, Good Food Chimney is simply but tastefully decked out with classic black-and-white accents and is sparsely furnished with few seating options as the dessert is supposed to be enjoyed on the move — not exactly practical in this weather, though. An open-concept allows you to watch the cones getting prepped and filled. The menu, apart from some alcoholic offerings, is exactly the same as the ones in Prague. But, surprisingly, the cones (S$6.90 – S$7.90) are a good deal cheaper here than in any other country (prices usually start at US$10 overseas). There are currently four flavours (chocolate, vanilla, raspberry and yoghurt) with plans to introduce a matcha flavoured soft-serve as well as DIY flavour pairings down the road.

Rayner Ling, 27, is the baby-faced F&B towkay behind Yolé (formerly llaollao) frozen yoghurt chain and Taiwanese cake chain Le Castella (Jurong Point and Tampines 1). A commendable feat for anyone under 30, but according to Rayner, youth is not always on his side when it comes to the F&B biz, as there’s more to prove. Hence, he says, his reluctance to be photographed — even for this feature. Like most young first-time business owners, Rayner financed his virgin venture with help from his parents, who used to own a hardware company. This time, however, he and his brother pumped $400,000 of their own savings into Good Food Chimney — the two specially imported Carpigiani soft serve machines (the same ones used at Yole) alone cost almost $60,000. The brothers also plan to open three more branches (“Hopefully one in Ion Orchard”) next year and are in the process of obtaining Halal certification. “Unlike in Prague, none of our flavours contain alcohol”.

The most popular offering here is the charcoal soft-serve yogurt with an embossed dark chocolate disc and cheeky sugared red horns peeking out of a chic black-on-black combo. The only yoghurt offering here has a light tang to it and mild sweetness, much like Yolé's. The texture of the cone, which is covered with desiccated coconut, is denser than the others on the menu because of the active charcoal ingredient and has a slightly sweet finish. Overall a very pleasing combination.

Apparently a favourite with the ladies, but we found this number way too tart for our palates. On its own, the raspberry ice cream sprinkled with bits of real raspberry pulp is fantastic. The sweet and sour flavour is punchy, summery and refreshing. However, the balance is thrown off when paired with the cone that’s cloaked in overwhelmingly tangy dehydrated raspberry powder.

Pistachio and chocolate is a match made in heaven. This is a textural treat: the caramelised outer layer of the cone imparts a slightly bitter first note, which slowly gives way to a familiar bready sweetness. The chocolate soft serve has the richness of cocoa, but lacks that luxurious velvety texture we expected. Apparentyl they’re still tweaking the texture of the soft-serve so we expect this to get better the next time we drop by.

We thought that this fresh cream offering sans ice cream would be too heavy, but the cream is super light and airy so it doesn’t feel cloying. When mixed with the tart mixed berry compote at the bottom, the combination works. The hazelnut-covered cone with the warm texture of freshly baked bread gives it an earthy robustness that pairs exceedingly well with the freshness of the filling. And we love the spicy Christmassy scent from the ginger cookie bear garnish.

This photogenic sweet treat is pretty to look at and fun, if a tad messy, to eat. But it’s hard to say if that’s enough to sustain fickle Singaporeans’ interest once the novelty wears off. Also, the cone is heavy like a soft pretzel — and sometimes, all you need is a simple scoop of ice cream on an old-fashioned crispy cone.

Good Food Coffee & Bakery is at #02-135/136 VivoCity, 1 Harbourfront Walk, S098585. Open daily 10am-10pm. www.goodfoodchimney.com​​​​​​​.

PHOTOS: MARK LEE