Ice cream! Frozen custard! Gelato! What’s the difference? Faced with a dripping cone, who cares? This sweet season is short and the lines are long. Let’s go before it melts away.
June 2008
Adele’s Frozen Custard This inconspicuous stand draws folks down the block in the sunnier months. Its portions are generous, the toppings homemade (don’t miss the caramel sauce), and the just-toasted waffle cones come with a malted milk ball at the bottom.
800 Excelsior Blvd., Excelsior, 952-470-0035 Crema Cafe
Granddaddy of premium ice cream shops, Crema cranks out lovely green tea ice cream, spumoni, gemlike sorbets, and its signature flavor “Crema”–cream infused with roasted arabica coffee beans. But give us vanilla—straight up, bean flecked—the richest and purest around. 3403 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls., 612-824-3868
Edina Creamery
The tiny, 1950s ice cream shop, with its red booths and stools and black-and-white floor, scoops up seriously creamy stuff: caramel cookie praline, banana nut brownie, to name a few, plus real soda fountain drinks too. 5055 France Ave. S., Mpls., 612-920-2169; 13003 Ridgedale Dr., Ridge Square N., Minnetonka, 952-545-0911
Glaciers Custard and Coffee Café
The custards that come out of this easy-to-miss drive-through and shop are great, but even better are the custard pies and cakes (especially the pumpkin at holiday time). 888 Superior Blvd., Wayzata, 952-473-8518
Grand Ole Creamery
A conga line of customers snakes through the red screen door that doesn’t bang shut on the crispest waffle cones filled with baseball-sized scoops of such whimsical ice creams as confetti birthday cake (beware, butter cream addicts) and black walnut. 750 Grand Ave., St. Paul, 651-293-1655
Izzy’s Ice Cream
Recently featured on Bobby Flay’s TV show Throwndown, Izzy’s has been garnering acclaim for its “cherry bombs” (cherries jubilee ice cream inside a chocolate shell) as well as dark chocolate cin and Key lime pie ice creams. It’s the first ice cream shop powered by solar rays in the United States (such sunny serendipity). 2034 Marshall Ave., St. Paul, 651-603-1438
Liberty Frozen Custard
Skip back into the 1950s. This sparkling chrome and robin’s-egg blue enamel service station is one happy mom-and-pop custard shop. Steve and Vicky Uhr swirl up chocolate and vanilla with choice mix-ins, daily flavors (death by chocolate and Reese’s Pieces or mint brownie fudge, for example), a shake of the month (Bavarian Thin Mint as of this writing), and refreshing Italian ices. 5401 Nicollet Ave., Mpls., 612-823-8700
Licks Unlimited
Grab one of the malts, slushies, or fresh chocolate-dipped waffle cones filled with chocolate peanut butter ice cream and stroll along the shore of Lake Minnetonka at Excelsior Commons. 31 Water St., Excelsior, 952-474-4791
Luxury Sweets
The real Italian deal in twenty-eight flavors, made fresh every day. Gelato is denser and less sweet than American ice cream; a little of this fresh-tasting stuff goes a long long way. 15322 Galaxie Ave., Apple Valley, 952-431-2440
Pumphouse Creamery
Perky as her lemon ginger sorbet, owner Barb Zapzalka scoops up blueberry buttermilk and mint truffle made with her handmade truffles. Named for the first thing you’d see near her family’s farm near Little Falls, Pumphouse Creamery is as close to farm-fresh ice cream as city slickers can get. 4754 Chicago Ave., Mpls., 612-825-2021
Sebastian Joe’s Ice Cream Café
Among the first to up the ice cream ante, SJ’s has been scooping its raspberry chocolate chip and Oreo cookie since 1984. One-hundred-fifteen flavors, twenty-four daily, wild and wonderful choices—cayenne-spiked chocolate coyote, Pavarotti (banana, caramel, and chocolate chips), and an array of sherbets and sorbets. 4321 Upton Ave. S., Mpls., 612-926-7916; 1007 Franklin Ave. W., Mpls., 612 870-0065
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