Add The California Post on Google Fresh off National Ice Cream Month, the California Post set out to crown LA’s ultimate ice cream, with a visit to food festival Smorgasburg’s “ice cream alley,” described as a selection of the best independent ice cream makers in the city.
I sampled ice cream — as well as frozen yogurt and gelato — from seven different vendors, and it was a tough choice. (And luckily, ice cream is good for you!)
But the winner offers options that fulfill all the cravings: whether you’re looking for something rich and ultra creamy for your sweet tooth or something refreshing, healthy and totally guilt free.
I also shout out a couple runner-ups I felt were exceptional in their own right.
Ice cream has been my favorite food since I was 18, and my sweet tooth is not easily impressed. I shun anything that’s not artisanal ice cream made with authentic ingredients. I’m looking for thick creamy texture and complex flavor.
Like Smorgasburg’s advertising for ice cream alley, throughout this article, I use “ice cream” as an umbrella term for ice cream, gelato and frozen yogurt.
The overall winner was Swirlies, an ice cream and fro-yo shop that first originated in Jalisco, Mexico, and offers traditional and Mexican-inspired flavors.
They first captivated me with their banana ice cream with caramel and marzipan crumbs. I’m always looking for but usually disappointed by banana ice cream because most of them taste like they’re made with artificial flavoring, like a laffy taffy candy.
Swirlies’ ice cream achieves the subtle complex flavor notes of real banana, because it’s made with real bananas and vanilla ice cream! And somehow their machine makes the final concoction ultra-thick and creamy. “It’s all in the drill,” said Swirlies co-owner Yardley Vergara.
Vergara then said I had to try their signature frozen yogurt, made only with real fruit and yogurt — no added sugar. But you can add a tamarind chamoy glaze on top.
I had just eaten 7 different ice creams, and felt like the last thing I wanted was another ice cream. But I wolfed down Swirlies’ strawberry and peach frozen yogurt and probably could have eaten two more. Vergara said Katy Perry loves their frozen yogurt too.
Swirlies launched in LA’s Highland Park neighborhood, where Vergara was born and raised. He brought over the concept of his wife Vianca’s frozen yogurt shop in Jalisco, Mexico.
“My wife and I said, ‘you know what? Highland Park is missing that Latino culture. It was removed years ago,” Vergara said. “So we brought it back to Highland Park.’”
Now Swirlies has three carts and caters private parties, such as a recent event with LEGO and Olivia Rodrigo.
Picking a winner was honestly a tough decision between Swirlies and Innamorata Gelato, which wowed me with their Greek Goddess gelato: slow-churned greek frozen yogurt drizzled with olive oil and flakey sea salt. One of the main factors that makes it gelato instead of frozen yogurt is that it’s slow-churned.
I have never tasted frozen yogurt so thick and creamy, while simultaneously tart and refreshing. The olive oil and sea salt added a very unique savory contrast. The combination really transported me to the Mediterranean, where founder Rebecca De Cosmis is from. She moved to the US from Italy 10 years ago and learned how to make gelato this good by attending Gelato University in Chicago.
De Cosmis focuses on healthy gelato so that people can have more guilt-free pleasure. She grew up in Italy eating gelato multiple times a day.
“Innamorata means in love, and it’s about sharing those moments with the people you love and I think pleasure is productive enough,” De Cosmis said.
“I think we live in a world where everything has to be justified, even every bite. But with gelato… you’re just eating because you’re with someone you love, because the sun is out, and that’s productive enough.”
And finally, I have to give a shoutout to Bernie’s Italian Ice. I did not have high expectations, because I decided a long time ago that I don’t like Italian ice, but I guess I just haven’t had the right one.
Bernie’s ice texture is so fine and smooth, with the slightest hint of crunch. The passion fruit flavor tasted authentic.
On the sole metric of refreshingness, Bernie’s Italian ice takes the cake. It would likely invigorate me the most if I’m out and about, feeling sweaty and lethargic on one of LA’s many sweltering hot summer days.
