Twin Cities Ice Cream Bucket List

The strange and amazing future of ice cream arrives in shops this summer. Are you ready for it?

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Summer is precious: the hot sun baking the sidewalks, the lawns spilling over with kids filling water balloons from the garden hose. For adults, the stakes are higher. Make the most of it, says the sun, for tomorrow it vanishes! OK, sun, sheesh. So much pressure.  

Ice cream season in 2018 seems even more consequential. There are suddenly whole new categories of ice cream (rolled!) to fit into the soft-serve and scoop-case scene. Thus, your 2018 ice cream bucket list. You’ve got maybe six months before ice cream season melts away. Make sure you don’t miss a single scoop—or roll, or slice.

ROLL IT

The big news of the year: Ice cream suddenly is a flat thing that rolls. The concept originated in southeast Asia and involves pouring a cup of ice cream base on a zero-degree super-cooled griddle, then scraping up the instant freeze. The most extreme local practitioner—serving rolls as tacos or “hot dogs”—is Wonders. The vibe of the original Frogtown location is killer house party, and successfully puts to rest the question of what you’d do with grade schoolers at a rave. Sota Hot & Cold, a little west of Wonders, offers unconventional flavors—look for a cinnamon-and-chili special that’s legit spicy. Loulou Sweet and Savory sits right off the Midtown Greenway and offers fresh strawberries and salty pistachios as mix-ins. It’s the mellowest of the ice cream roll destinations—at least until you add a triple espresso.

FARM TO SCOOP

Sonny’s Café and Sonny’s Ice Cream cycle through more than a thousand micro-batch ice creams and sorbets a year—from toasted coconut to local maple syrup. (It’s a must-try for visiting chefs.) Pumphouse is our leader in turning local farms’ products into something frozen and scrumptious. It starts with Crystal Ball Farm milk and cream, then adds organically grown Minnesota berries, Door County cherries, and local-roaster coffee. It’ll even serve it all in an heirloom red-wheat waffle cone. Sweet Science has previously served everything in lidded to-go cups, but this summer it’ll open a standalone scoop shop in the Keg & Case complex on West 7th in St. Paul. 

CHEFS ON ICE

Milkjam is the standard-bearer of frozen invention. Chef Sameh Wadi of World Street Kitchen fame wanted a sweet playground, so he invented it. His cake slices pair toppings like burnt marshmallow and Amarena cherries with special ice creams like Ridin’ Durrty: a mix of Oreos, Oreo milk, and salty peanut butter. Plant that on a sponge-cake base and put a candle on it, birthday star! Hi-Lo Diner prepares the ice cream cocktails of your sweetest bartending dreams. How about a grasshopper with Tempus Fugit Créme de Menthe (botanical-distilled, not fake-flavored)? Sweet Chow, the new southeast Asian North Loop spot by chef John Krattemakker, promises an ice cream counter in the spring or summer—look for it!

AMERICAN BEAUTY

If your summer ice cream dreams involve snapping a family photo in a high-class, Audrey Hepburn Hollywood fantasia, you must report to La La Homemade Ice Cream. Here, white marble surfaces and bent-wire Parisian chairs make it look like you’ve taken a weekend on the beach at Monte Carlo. Don’t miss the sampler plates: The eight-scoop $12 option is big enough to share with three people . . . and oh the pictures! MN Nice Cream is what would happen if Tinker Bell opened a disco where she served ice cream. Katie Romanski is the glitter genius who started it all, with the food truck you were most delighted to find three beers into an outdoor concert. Now she’s got a brick-and-mortar across from Able Brewing in Northeast. Sparkle lovers, activate! 

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