The Ice Cream “Stretch” is the Next Cheese Pull
Why Chewy Middle Eastern Ice Cream is Poised to Take Over Your Social Feed
POV: from our point of view, a snapshot of the emerging trends we have our eyes on.
We called it in our 2025 Hospitality Trends Report: Turkish cuisine is having a moment—and dondurma (aka Turkish stretchy ice cream) is what’s coming next. Not because it’s new—it’s been around for centuries—but because it delivers a texture most Americans have never experienced in ice cream form. In a moment where Middle Eastern desserts are gaining viral momentum (**see: the Dubai chocolate bar, a modern creation that turned pistachio & kataifi combos into a mainstream sensation) dondurma offers a counterpoint: a deeply traditional dessert that’s just as visually striking, and arguably more surprising. This isn’t your standard scoop. It doesn’t drip, doesn’t melt on contact, and doesn’t quietly surrender to gravity. It stretches. It chews. It puts up a little fight—in the most delightful way possible. In fact, you’re more likely to break your cone than have your scoop fall off.
Dondurma is Turkey’s famously elastic ice cream—so thick and stretchy it can be pulled like taffy, twisted like dough, and sliced with a knife. It’s thickened with salep—a flour made from wild orchid tubers—which gives it an almost rubbery resilience and unmistakable chew. Some versions include mastic (a piney, aromatic resin extracted from the bark of a tree that grows in the Mediterranean), but salep is what makes it nearly impervious to melt. In Turkey, dondurma isn’t just dessert—it’s performance art. Street vendors wield long-handled paddles, stretching and slinging scoops with theatrical flair, teasing customers with mock handoffs and surprise cone flips. In an age of food made to be filmed, this playful spectacle feels tailor-made for the U.S. stage.
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But Turkey isn’t the only place scooping with resistance. Stretchy ice cream has deep roots across the Middle East. Booza, dondurma’s Levantine cousin, is found across Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. It’s traditionally pounded by hand with oversized wooden mallets, using mastic and sahlab (a regional name for salep) to achieve its signature dense, chewy texture—more frozen taffy than soft-serve swirl. Often served in pulled ribbons or sliced to order, booza most often leans floral in flavor—think rosewater, pistachio, or ashta—letting the texture take center stage.
Ice Cream Is Stretching Its Limits
Stretchy ice cream doesn’t just taste different—it behaves differently. It twirls, it tugs, it performs. It’s a born content creator, offering visual drama in every pull and snap. And the texture? Unexpected in all the right ways. In an era where texture is becoming just as important as taste, dondurma and booza’s tactile appeal—cool, creamy, and stretchy all at once—feels uniquely of-the-moment.
In the Philippines, stretchy ice cream brand Cuppy turned texture into a game—offering a free dessert to anyone who could stretch their scoop high enough. The visual? Irresistible. The payoff? Sticky, shareable brand buzz. It’s low-lift, high-impact, and tailor-made for TikTok.
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Insight-OUT: When your product performs, let it. Build a challenge around the stretch. Add a target, a giveaway, a branded backdrop. Then let your guests do the marketing for you.
If that textural defiance sounds familiar, you're not wrong. It echoes the rise of kataifi-based desserts (we named “Kataifi Creations” our Dessert of the Year in the 2025 Hospitality Trends Report), whose crisp, shredded threads of phyllo dough have found new fame in creations like knafeh pancakes, pistachio cigars, and yes, various iterations and riffs on the Dubai chocolate bar. While the bar itself is a recent invention, its viral success has helped shine a spotlight on Middle Eastern ingredients and textures that have been around for centuries. Booza and dondurma belong to that same lineage—just colder, chewier, and equally worthy of attention. (We’re also seeing trend mashups, with “Dubai style” booza sundaes topped with kataifi and chopped pistachios, of course!)
While still a specialty item in the States, we’re beginning to see more booza and dondurma shops opening across the U.S. Take a look at a few standout spots across the country bringing this scoop-defying ice cream to the forefront.
Galata (Longbeach, CA) is a scoop shop specializing in Turkish dondurma, imported from Kahramanmaraş and served with the full theatrical “ice cream show” led by longtime dondurma master Erkan Gozal. With no toppings and more than two dozen rotating flavors—including pistachio, chestnut, and dairy-free fruit options—the shop draws crowds for both the chewy texture and the playful, cone-flipping performance. (Click the link above to see the performance in action!)
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Bekdash (Tampa, FL) brings the iconic Arabic ice cream experience stateside, serving traditional booza in its signature ashta-pistachio style—thick, chewy, and rolled generously in crushed nuts. Modeled after the legendary Bekdash of Damascus—a fixture of the city’s old souk since 1895—this shop channels the same sensory drama and cultural nostalgia.
At Cafe Roast & Toast (Berkeley, CA), Palestinian owner Fadi Alhour grinds mastic by hand with a mortar and pestle, and mixes it with powdered salep sourced from Turkey to create a booza base so dense, it’s broken his gelato machine multiple times. Flavors include a traditional original and a floral cardamom rose, both served with pistachio and kataifi on top.
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Wowbooza (Duluth, GA) was opened in 2024 by Palestinian-American Loqman Salem, who craved the distinct stretchy ice cream he enjoyed on childhood trips to Ramallah with his family, and couldn’t find in the States. The shop specializes in handcrafted booza made with traditional techniques—imported mastic and salep, and inventive freezing methods refined over years of experimentation. Alongside stretchy ice cream, the café offers Middle Eastern treats like kunafa, baklava, crepes, and viral Dubai chocolate bars.
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Booza Delight (Dearborn Heights, MI) is a family-run shop owned by Lebanese‑American couple May and Yasser Hashwi, specializing in traditional Lebanese-style ashta stretchy booza. In addition to scoops, they’re known for a array of confections including their booza ice cream rolls topped with pistachios and “cotton candy” (or “ghazl al-banat,” a traditional Middle Eastern hand-pulled sweet made from sugar and flour, sometimes with butter or oil, spun into fine, delicate threads).
One of the most memorable dishes I ever ate was that super stretchy thick clotted cream flavored Turkish Ice Cream. Have never had anything like it before or since, so super excited some places are stating to bring a little tiny bit of that experience here!