Engines of Gastronomy

If It’s a Frozen Dessert at P*ong, Blame the Pacojet

Chef Pichet Ong and his beloved Pacojet, made red just for him.
Chef Pichet Ong and his beloved Pacojet, made red just for him.haha Photo: Melissa Hom


It takes more than skilled hands, sharp knives, and a creative mind to power New York’s restaurants. There’s also some heavy equipment that deserves periodic recognition.

Today’s dessert alchemists draw from a considerable arsenal in their battle against conventional cake and ice cream. But the real secret weapon for many of these artisans is the Pacojet, a kind of high-tech blender. Pichet Ong was one of the earliest adopters of the Pacojet and uses a customized one at P*ong for all of his ice creams, sorbets, and ices.

“It’s like a blender on speed,” Ong explains. “Everything that goes in it gets sort of pulverized so fine that it almost emulsifies into shape.” Extremely sharp blades moving at high speed shave the frozen material into minute slices, breaking down their physical integrity. The Pacojet allows Ong to create, for example, a kind of very fine ice called “snow” that would be impossible without it. (If you’re looking to upgrade your Snoopy Sno-Cone machine, a Pacojet will run you only $3,450.) But the chef says that you really see its value in his ricotta ice cream with orange zest. “After I make the ice-cream base, I spin the orange zest into it with the machine, and it gives a beautiful light-orange hue to the dish, extracting the oils from the orange without any little hard bits coming through. I love my Pacojet. There are things you can do with it that no ice-cream machine or blender would ever allow you to do.”

If It’s a Frozen Dessert at P*ong, Blame the Pacojet