FROZEN FACE-OFF

NYC’s iced-hot-cocoa battle heats up with a decadent gourmet contender

R OLL over, Serendipity 3’s Frrrozen Hot Chocolate: The new king of cold “hot” chocolate drinks is Iced Hot Chocolate at Kreuther Handcrafted Chocolate (43 W. 42nd St.), the sophisticated sweets shop next to chef Gabriel Kreuther’s namesake, top French restaurant.

But this iced “hot” beverage isn’t sweet. Unlike Serendipity’s slurpy sugar bomb aimed at kids and thirddaters, Kreuther pastry chef Marc Aumont’s lasciviously rich libation is for grown-ups. Pastry sous-chef Priscilla S. Mariani says it uses ultra-dark chocolate made with 70 and 80 percent cacao and “the minimal side of sugar.”

The chocolate anchors a secretformula, water-based ganache that’s blended with whole or skim milk — or, for the lactose-averse, soy or almond milk. The frothy mix is then poured over a heap of ice.

The resulting elixir is like no other cold chocolate beverage I’ve had — syrupy, not quite bitter and pos- sessed of rich cacao-bean notes.

Topped with vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, Serendipity’s Frrrozen Hot Chocolate is really a dessert, while Kreuther’s Iced Hot Chocolate is strictly a drink. You can gulp it at small tables with a total of 15 seats while noshing on the shop’s selection of exotically flavored chocolates, macarons, ice-cream sandwiches and “specialty” bonbons. (think peanut-butter pretzel cassis.) But I prefer to take it across the street to Bryant Park and savor it sip by sip.

Mariani says that using less sugar than in conventional confections “deepens the taste of chocolate, even when it’s cold.” But otherwise, the Kreuther team is ratcheting up the mystery factor.