Sushi-San Creates Sundae Collaboration With The Loveless Cafe

Old Nashville and New Nashville are coming together, at least for one month in the form of an ice cream sundae. During October, Sushi-San, which opened in 12South in November of last year, is bringing a piece of the 75-year-old Loveless Cafe to its soft-serve takeout window with The Loveless San-dae, an ice cream treat that includes Loveless’ signature biscuits.

Lettuce Entertain You, the Chicago-based company that owns Sushi-San, also owns The Cookie Bar in Chicago and serves soft ice cream there, but not at Sushi-San's Windy City location. When they were opening the Nashville location, they wanted to offer something different. Pastry chef Juan Gutierrez saw the number of people walking through the neighborhood and waiting in long lines in 12South for coffee at neighbor La La Land Cafe, and thought they could do something fun — so they opened a soft-serve walk-up window right next to the sushi restaurant, opening to the plaza south of Ashwood Avenue.

“We had the opportunity to bring something completely different into the market,” Gutierrez says.

The window has been popular for its changing seasonal flavors — although the matcha dip has been a year-round favorite, Gutierrez says — and has become a hangout in its own right. (Hot tip: Gutierrez teases that the seasonal treat for the December holidays will be a Black Forest sundae with cherry sauce and chocolate sponge cake.)

Gutierrez and the Lettuce Entertain You team have been impressed by Nashville’s collaborative spirit. “With all the restaurants around us, it’s becoming like more of a brotherhood, and everybody just wants to work with each other,” he says.

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With The Loveless Cafe turning 75 this year, the time was right to introduce The Loveless San-dae, made with Hokkaido vanilla soft-serve, Loveless Cafe apple butter and its signature biscuits, brown butter caramel and Maldon salt. A donation of 75 cents from each $11.95 sundae will go to Second Harvest Food Bank, The Loveless Cafe's charity partner.

It’s only available at Sushi-San (Loveless doesn’t have a soft-serve machine), so Gutierrez likes bringing a piece of Loveless, located out Highway 100 near the Natchez Trace Parkway, to 12South.

“That’s why I love doing collaborations, because you not only know, you not only work and get to try tasting new things, but you also learn about other restaurants and also their chefs,” he says.

Gutierrez, who normally picks Sushi-San’s strawberry matcha sundaes as his go-to, likes the salty-sweet combo in the Loveless offering. When developing new sundae combos, Gutierrez typically plays on nostalgia to create flavors. And Loveless certainly provides a lot of nostalgia in Nashville.

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“That’s the emotion; it’s the way that we can connect with everyone on a much deeper level,” he says. “When you try something and you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this reminds me of something I had when I was younger. Oh my God, my grandma used to make something like this.’ That’s what I always focus on, making sure that everybody’s going to remember us on a deeper level.”

The sushi restaurant offers a full dessert program with miso caramel cake, matcha tiramisu and a whiskey-glazed Japanese butter cake. Gutierrez says he sees some guests just pay their dinner bill, stand up and go get in line for soft serve. 

“Some people even just go and have dessert and then go for soft-serve because that’s how delicious they are,” he says.

While the Loveless promotion is designed for October, Gutierrez says there’s hope for a year-round taste of Loveless in 12South. “We’re going to see what everyone’s response is. We are open to extending it if people get excited, which is what I think is going to happen”