You know what they say: It takes two. Every so often, some of our favorite chefs, restaurants and sweets-slingers team up for one-time-only dishes so fun they make us wonder why the collaboration didn’t happen sooner.
Over the next month we’re looking forward to Roy Choi ice cream, massive sandwiches and more to really make the most of our meals. As if we didn’t already have enough tough choices when choosing where to dine, here are a few new, limited-time collabs to make your life even more difficult (but in the long run, way more delicious).
Richard Blais x Sweetfin Poke
By the power of two Top Chef alumni comes the Blais Bowl, the latest in Sweetfin’s chef-collab series. The poke shop’s executive chef, co-owner and season nine contestant Dakota Weiss just teamed up with season four contestant and Top Chef: All-Stars winner Richard Blais, resulting in a pile of sustainably-sourced salmon, yellowfin tuna and albacore tuna tossed with yuzu soy sauce, served over pineapple fried rice with mango, pickled onions, avocado and pine nuts all under a mountain of crispy onions. Blais, the San Diego chef behind the lauded Juniper & Ivy, is set to open an L.A. outpost of his fast-casual fried-chicken spot, the Crack Shack, any day now; look for it in the Westfield Century City, and then later in Pasadena, too. While we await his L.A. arrivals, we’ll check out the Blais Bowl—available July 1 through August 30—maybe even with a glass of Sweetfin’s new private-label rosé.
Photograph: Courtesy Sweet Chick and Uncle Paulie’s
Sweet Chick x Uncle Paulie’s
What happens when an unstoppable hunger meets an immovably large sandwich? Find out at both Sweet Chick and Uncle Paulie’s when the chicken-and-waffle emporium and the Italian-American deli join forces for a limited-time-only chicken parm sub. The New York transplants behind both concepts wanted to bring a bit of that East Coast Italian love to L.A., so they’re slathering rolls with house-made parmesan red sauce, fried chicken and gooey house-made mozzarella. Starting tomorrow, June 28, catch them both offering the special through the month of July, but be warned: Sweet Chick will only stock 12 orders a day, and only at their Fairfax location. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Photograph: Courtesy Humphry Slocombe
Roy Choi x Humphry Slocombe
It was late last month that Roy Choi launched his new ice cream collab with San Francisco creamery Humphry Slocombe, shortly before announcing his split from the Line Hotel. Fortunately, while Choi’s involvement with his restaurants in the K-town hotel is coming to a close, the ice cream lives on—at least through the end of July. You can still stop by the Sunday pool parties and Commissary to catch the new flavor, which is inspired by Hawaiian shaved ice, swirling sorbet through condensed-milk ice cream. You can also catch it at Humphry Slocombe’s July 15 pop-up, when it hits Smorgasburg in celebration of National Ice Cream Day, and keep your fingers crossed for it when the ice cream shop touches down in L.A. with its own location in August.