Our roving West Coast reporters Brian Wolk and Claude Morais of Wolk Morais always meet the most interesting types and this month the boys are turning their attention to the current queen of ice cream! Come again? We’ll let them take it from here….
Natasha Case is perhaps one of the coolest young women emerging in the gourmet ice cream scene. A classically trained architect, Natasha has managed to turn her rebellious academic tendencies into cold cash and frozen glamour. COOLHAUS’ disruptive approach to ice-creamology is taking the culinary world by storm, or perhaps, in the case of Natasha Case, by blizzard. Her Proustian approach to cookery is one part sense memory, one part alchemy, and a whole lot of visual semiology. Her flavors are evocative of a myriad of emotions strung together effortlessly onto a spoon. Her seasonal approach to ice cream (not that different from us fashion folk) allows her to explore narratives that range from her Jewish childhood to teenage rebellion. Walking into her flagship shop in Los Angeles’ Gallery district, Culver City, is not just a joy for one’s palate, but a visual feast. We were lucky enough to spend some time with the sweet sovereign herself (whom Forbes recently anointed with its Thirty under Thirty crown) and chat about one of our favorite royal subjects…Ice Cream.
Does your family value food and cooking?
My parents are amazing but they really didn’t cook much as they both had, and have, pretty active careers. My dad is also an architect, and my mom is an animator at Disney.
In terms of aesthetics, what inspires you? Do you have any go-to painters, designers or sculptors?
I love Rothko, I love being able to sit with his work for hours and watch it transform in front of me. I love the Renaissance, particularly Botticelli. I also love the colorful graphic quality of Yayoi Kusama’s work.
Give us some insight into your creative process. Is it formal or improvisational?
I think of ice cream as a canvas that you can keep throwing paint on, keep throwing flavors in and experimenting with. It’s a lot like cooking, where you have a classic recipe but then you can personalize it to your liking. The ice cream side of my business is extremely interactive where the baking side is creative but more scientific. In terms of ice cream, the first part is making the base, a bit like custard. Then you begin to layer. In many ways it’s a lot like my architectural process. I am non-perfectionist architect, which is unusual. It’s a journey when we develop a new flavor and it’s constantly metamorphosing. It’s also a team effort. I’m not afraid to make a statement, and because you are consuming the end product frozen, my point of view has to be clear because the customers’ taste buds are frozen. When I do research and development I pick a theme, like breakfast, and than riff on it. It’s seasonal, much like fashion. There are always surprises and always failures. For example, my pickle ice cream. It never made it out of the test kitchen after our interns where terrified. They really are the best litmus test!
How do you evoke emotions through flavor? Your ice cream has been called Proustian!
Well an example of this is my Jewish deli line of ice cream. It’s all about comfort food and it’s inspired by my childhood. Potato latkes and apple sauce ice cream, Pastrami, and marble rye cookies, all of these flavors evoke memories from my formative years. Another example is our fast-food flavor, which is salted Tahitian vanilla bean with malted chocolate balls and shoe-string potatoes, which was created to bring back memories of dipping fries in a milkshake as a teenager.
How do you find the balance with your distributors and your creative expression?
Because I come from architecture where so much of you creativity comes from problem solving and working within boundaries… I think having restraints from the retailer, distributor and the FDA forces you to be more creative in a different way and still make it cool. Over time you learn to trust yourself more, and question rules. Also sometimes what works in the shop in scoop form may not work in a traditional retail environment.
What do you consider to be your best case study in your career to date that put you on the map and gave you the most street credibility?
Launching at Coachella the first year. If you can work out the logistics for serving 100k people ice cream in the desert you can pretty much do anything! It was an important insider crowd, and the perfect demographic to establish our brand. I’m also really proud of our trucks. You have to always be up for the adventure and be versatile. No two days are the same. I think there is a respect that comes from that daily grind.
Did your family freak out when you decided not to pursue a traditional architecture career after 100 years of school?
I just got my masters, and I was the good Jewish daughter on the path to career stability and what was expected of me, Volvo and all. As I mentioned earlier my dad is an architect and my mom is animator, and my first job was at Disney Imagineering, which is basically being an architect at Disney, so I was the perfect bi-product of my parents. When I broke the ice cream news to them there were definitely several informal interventions, but it all came together at the end and they are extremely supportive.
What flavor would you never do again?
We made a Waldorf Salad Ice Cream with blue cheese. No more blue cheese ice cream!
How does the entertainment industry in L.A. inspire you?
Well we just did a pizza ice cream for fall; mascarpone base, sun-dried tomatoes and basil, which I would love to be the flavor for Broad City.
What’s the most unusual request you’ve ever had for an ice cream flavor?
For the final season wrap party for Dexter we did the “Killer Combo,” which was an ice cream sandwich made of two different cookies for the two sides of Dexter, and Tahitian vanilla bean with a bloody cherry swirl. We did a Sponge Bob ice cream for Ashley Simpson’s son’s birthday, and on the opposite end of the spectrum we did a Vatican-inspired red wine reduction ice cream with cinnamon and black pepper for the disaster epic film, 2012.
What’s the future of CoolHaus?
I will always be a product person. I love creating something tangible. There is an undeniable partnership with design and food. “Eating with your Eyes” design is a key component in disrupting traditional approaches to edible products. You need to tell and taste a story with visuals, and architecture has been a great background to this.
To follow all of Brian and Claude’s West Coast adventures, check out the Wolk Morais Instagram.
To find out where the CoolHaus Ice Cream trucks are in L.A., New York City, and Dallas, check out their schedule online!!
