In keeping with a warmth stress-induced Google search on a current 87-degree day, there are greater than 25 locations to get good delicate serve in Seattle. Making selections much more troublesome, many outlets are doing their damnedest to place their distinctive, ahem, twist on the deal with.
Matcha Man in Georgetown is the go-to for build-your-own taiyaki cones. Fill the bottom of their freshly baked, fish-shaped candy waffle with crimson bean paste, custard, or Nutella and prime it off along with your selection of soppy serve from a revolving menu of flavors like black sesame, ube, matcha, pineapple Dole Whip, and Vietnamese espresso. Indian avenue meals spot Spice Waala solely presents one taste at a time, however they make it rely with taste combos you received’t discover elsewhere in Seattle, together with pistachio cardamom, fennel, and rose. Chilly Plate within the College District is thought for Thai-style rolled ice cream, however bubble tea followers shouldn’t sleep on their “floateas,” aka BUBBLE TEA SOFT-SERVE FLOATS. And Indigo Cow in Wallingford is so devoted to recreating conventional Japanese delicate cream that they declare to SHIP THEIR MILK IN FROM HOKKAIDO, JAPAN. Their delicate serve travels greater than 4,300 miles to get in your mouth!
Now, we may go from store to buy, tasting, testing, and evaluating notes to seek out which delicate serve is one of the best delicate serve, however… why? Life doesn’t must be about discovering one of the best. Like so lots of the world’s biggest meals, what’s “finest” is within the tastebuds of the beholder and might simply shift relying on moods, climate, and cravings. With that in thoughts, a few of The Stranger’s hungriest meals consultants sampled eight soft-serve spots throughout city that can assist you discover your favourite for the summer time—or simply right now.
Baiten
Capitol Hill
Baiten, a walk-up Japanese bakery tucked contained in the Capitol Hill izakaya Tamari Bar, is so small and unassuming,you would possibly miss it, which might be a minor tragedy. They concentrate on jewellike fruit sandos and dreamy vanilla delicate serve, which comes drizzled along with your selection of sauce (together with tangy yuzu curd, earthy matcha, and toasty hojicha) and topped with a fragile glacier-blue meringue. My favourite must be the Toki whisky-spiked caramel, which is simply boozy sufficient that it’s reserved for these 21 and up. The marginally bitter chunk of the whisky slices by means of the sweetness of the burnished copper caramel, which companies up into delightfully chewy ribbons the place it makes contact with the chilly ice cream—a divine dessert for anybody who craves simplicity.
Then again, when you’re extra of a maximalist, additionally they have loads of elaborate, towering concoctions, just like the kurogoma (black sesame) sundae, heaped with black sesame pudding, black sesame jelly, crimson bean paste, black sesame syrup, kinako mochi, a meringue, an ornate matcha cracker, and a pair matcha Pocky sticks. No matter you select, park your self on one of many repurposed barrel seats exterior and watch the world go by as you sink into bliss. JULIANNE BELL
Watson’s Counter
Ballard
Do you know that Ballard’s finest espresso store and Korean fried chickery additionally has incredible delicate serve? In two scrumptious and sometimes kinda bizarre flavors? In July, the flaves are boysenberry and Nutella, and former editions have included jasmine and darkish chocolate, lemon basil and blueberry, and ginger and rhubarb. Proprietor James Lim makes positive to decide on the flavour pairs to go with each other, so you will get them in a swirl with out it being gross.
With regards to delicate serve, Lim has some feelings. At age 15, his first job was at Little Coney on Shilshole Bay, simply across the nook from Watson’s, the place he remembers making these gigantic, sloppy soft-serve cones together with his mates. “This was the inspiration for our soft-serve program right here at Watson’s,” Lim explains, lamenting that his trendy machine isn’t constructed to permit him and his workers to make the cone as obnoxiously large as they used to at Little Coney. You may get them in small, medium, and enormous, although, and the big is fairly rattling giant. MEG VAN HUYGEN
The Pastry Venture
Pioneer Sq.
Earlier than the Pastry Venture opened their soft-serve window in late June, homeowners Emily Kim and Heather Hodge let me go to their Pioneer Sq. kitchen and provides their dipped cones a go, fulfilling my 8-year-old-self’s goals of sooner or later working the dip cone counter at Dairy Queen.
It’s so a lot tougher than it seems! It takes an knowledgeable hand to swirl their particularly wealthy (borderline frozen custard) delicate serve right into a cone with such precision that it will possibly then be turned the wrong way up (!) and dunked right into a heat liquid bathtub (!!) with nary a drop falling misplaced.
The Pastry Venture’s soft-serve window is simply open for the summer time, and it presents three flavors—purple vanilla, chocolate, and twist. Whereas the ice cream is decadent sufficient to get pleasure from by itself—no low cost, icy combine right here—the true magic is within the toppings. The aforementioned arduous shell dip is out there in butterscotch, chocolate, and strawberry passionfruit, and also you’re gonna positively need to add their rainbow peanut crunch. That’s housemade honeycomb-esque peanut brittle that has been smashed to bits and blended with chopped peanuts and rainbow sprinkles. Nut-Blasting Crispy Magic Rainbow Crunch Fuck Yeah is what they need to name it. That on a twist cone with the strawberry passionfruit dip tastes like a PB&J turned as much as 11. MEGAN SELING
Temple Pastries
Central District
I’ve lengthy been a fan of the Central District bakery Temple Pastries, so I used to be thrilled to study earlier this spring that they’d opened a walk-up window aptly referred to as Ice Cream & Sandwich Window, serving two of my favourite meals teams: delicate serve and breakfast sandwiches. The under-the-radar spinoff doesn’t have a lot in the way in which of social media presence, making it a well-kept secret for these within the know. After I visited, there was an indication on the window notifying prospects that sandwiches wouldn’t be obtainable till additional discover. However that’s okay, as a result of we’re right here for the ice cream.
The cheerful takeout counter presently has two flavors on provide: a subtly floral light-green pandan and a sunny orange vegan mango sorbet with a frosty texture harking back to Dole Whip. I like to recommend getting each swirled collectively—the creamy, fragrant pandan and tart, fruity mango steadiness one another out superbly. For toppings, select from basic rainbow sprinkles, toasted coconut almond crunch, and, most adorably of all, a tiny Temple croissant. Word: There’s nowhere to sit down, so that you’ll simply have to face there and spoon ice cream into your mouth as you entice jealous glances from passersby. JULIANNE BELL
Tip High: An Ice Cream Store
Highland Park
Tip High: An Ice Cream Store, tucked inside West Seattle’s very charming Highland Park Nook Retailer, makes “New Zealand-style ice cream with a Northwest twist.” What’s New Zealand-style ice cream? In keeping with Tip High proprietor and Seattleite Meaghan Haas, who attended the College of Auckland, New Zealand ice cream is made by mixing collectively arduous ice cream and frozen fruit in a soft-serve machine that appears prefer it got here from the set of a Noticed film.
Your selection of a candy cream or vegan coconut base is scooped into a big plastic cone and topped with frozen fruit—menu mainstays embody blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, mango, and banana. Then the plastic cone is lifted as much as a big drill that shortly smashes and swirls the elements collectively and squeezes them out like a Play-Doh Enjoyable Manufacturing unit. The result’s as creamy and clean as delicate serve, however with a more energizing, brighter fruit taste. To not get all Willy Wonka on you, however the strawberries style like strawberries!
The one downside that isn’t actually even a downside a lot as a type of charming (albiet complicated) quirk: When my ice cream date ordered the mango ice cream, it tasted similar to a burst of recent mango, however the ice cream had a lightweight pink tint from the marionberry order that got here earlier than it. Was it bizarre to eat pink mango ice cream? Slightly bit! However it was nonetheless superb. MEGAN SELING
Milk Drunk
Beacon Hill
On Beacon Hill, Mediterranean fine-diner Homer is fairly well-known for its delicate serve, largely as a result of it appears kinda off-brand for a spot with marble counter tops and rockfish crudo to have delicate serve. However neighborhood people know—and now you do, too—that when you’re not available in the market for fancy dinner, simply ice cream, you may zip over to their sister restaurant, Milk Drunk, two blocks away. This fast-casual counter serves fried hen sandos, curly fries, and much more delicate serve, often in numerous flaves than Homer.
Like Homer, they are usually ingenious: Latest examples embody fig leaf, Rainier cherry, Turkish espresso, and peach caramel turmeric. There’s all the time a vegan possibility and a dairy possibility, they usually provide chocolate, peanut butter, or butterscotch arduous shell choices in your cup or cone, in addition to loads of sprinkly toppings. Parts are large too—even a child’s dimension is loads for a medium grownup. Make certain to order some curly fries and dip ‘em into your delicate serve such as you’re at Wendy’s. No, significantly. It’s good. MEG VAN HUYGEN
Frankie & Jo’s
Ballard
Massive information for vegans and lactose-intolerant ice cream lovers! Frankie & Jo’s is as soon as once more serving plant-based delicate serve at their Ballard location! Their Vanilla Solar Delicate Serve, made with a cashew milk base, is simply obtainable June by means of September, and it stars in an array of sundaes, together with strawberry shortcake, s’mores, baked cookie, and banana break up.
Did the delicate serve style plant-based to me, a dairy-loving vegetarian who earlier that exact same day ate a cup of milk-based ice cream? Truthfully, sure. However it was nonetheless so good! Not too candy, barely nutty, and the best creamy, cool companion to Frankie & Jo’s spectacular number of flavor-blasted toppings. Examples embody strawberry beet compote, zucchini pound cake, roasty marshmallow, cashew butter fudge, bitter cherry compote, and the intensely darkish chaga sizzling fudge. MEGAN SELING
Hellenika Cultured Creamery
Pike Place Market
This is likely one of the most iconically Seattle meals experiences that most individuals sail proper previous once they’re on the Market, and people individuals? Must know. Hellenika serves essentially the most astonishingly thick, luxurious gelato and frozen yogurt of anybody’s life out of their Pike Place store. If you happen to’ve had Ellenos yogurt earlier than, then you definately get it.
Greek Australian siblings Alex, Peter, and Constantinos Apostolopoulos began Hellenika in 2023. After working the Yogurt Store in Adelaide, the sibs’ frozen yogurt was found by flight attendant Yvonne Klein, who joined forces with Alex and Con, in addition to her husband, Bob Klein, to carry the stuff to Seattle as Ellenos Actual Greek Yogurt in 2012. Peter went out and received a meals science diploma from WSU within the meantime, working within the lab on Cougar Gold cheese as a dairy scientist. When Ellenos moved out of their Pike Place digs in 2023, Hellenika opened up in the identical house, by the so-called (faux) authentic Starbucks.
Not solely is these things as dense as mashed potatoes—not likely—nearly, although—it is available in cool flavors like macadamia, fairy bread, lemon curd, pistachio, and London Fog made with close by MarketSpice’s Earl Gray tea. It’s zippier and tangier than Ellenos’s yogurt too, and it’s all made extremely merely, with a base of milk, cream, and sugar that’s cooked after which incubated with Greek yogurt tradition. The result’s tart, ultra-creamy, and utterly distinctive in Seattle’s ice creamscape. Get it. MEG VAN HUYGEN
