Since the dawn of time (at least, since the dawn of Brigham\u2019s), Boston has been an ice cream city. Summer is the best excuse of all to find an ice cream store to match your persona. Here are our favorites.<\/p>\n
Because frozen yogurt is for suckers.*<\/p>\n
THE ADVENTURER<\/strong> THE CRAFTSMAN<\/strong> THE NEIGHBORHOOD CHAIN<\/strong> *ADDENDUM: FROZEN YOGURT IS NOT THE BAD GUY<\/strong> Originally published as “Which Ice Cream Shop is Right For You?” for SEO reasons, which was absolutely the right choice. But that original headline deserves to be printed somewhere.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Since the dawn of time (at least, since the dawn of Brigham\u2019s), Boston has been an ice cream city. Summer is the best excuse of all to find an ice cream store to match your persona. Here are our favorites. Because frozen yogurt is for suckers.* THE ADVENTURER Gus Rancatore\u2019s favorite flavor at his perennial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":714,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joeuchill.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nGus Rancatore\u2019s favorite flavor at his perennial \u201cbest of everything\u201d-winning ice cream shop Toscanini (899 Main Street, Cambridge) is Nocciola. You probably won\u2019t like it. And that\u2019s okay. \u201cIt\u2019s a very popular flavor in Italy, like a better Nutella,\u201d he says. \u201cMost Americans think that it\u2019s a little too unctuous.\u201d From its nationally-recognized earl grey ice cream to this summer\u2019s new Chaya (Singaporean coconut curd), Toscanini\u2019s is sure to serve at least one flavor you\u2019ll hate but someone you know will love. It\u2019s all worthwhile when you find that one flavor you love but everyone you know hates. \u201cI\u2019m currently playing with croutons,\u201d says Rancatore. \u201cThey stay crunchy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nThe dirty secret of ice cream is that most shops make it from a mix \u2013 often the same mix their competitors buy. Contrast that with Picco (513 Tremont St, Boston), where even the chocolate chips are made from scratch. Where mix users make coffee ice cream by adding cheap espresso to the same base they\u2019d use for chocolate or vanilla, Picco owner Rick Katz can infuse the milk with high-end coffee before starting a recipe that includes a type and amount of sugar specifically chosen for the flavor. If Toscanini is the destination for the flavors you can\u2019t find anywhere else, Picco is the destination for flavors you find everywhere else, but done right. They scoop chocolate made from Schaffen Berger chocolate, vanilla made from Tahitian vanilla and fruit flavors made from fresh, seasonal fruit. Sound too ritzy for your ice cream dollar? Picco, short for Pizza and Ice Cream Company, makes most of its money on pizza and alcohol, which Katz uses as an excuse to keep ice cream prices low. \u201cWe don\u2019t have to make a profit on every scoop of ice cream,\u201d Katz says.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cWhen people are standing in line for ice cream they revert to being children,\u201d says J.P Licks-owner Vince Petryk of his customer service philosophy, \u201cand you have to be nice to kids.\u201d Over 33 years, J.P. Licks\u2019 cow-spotted presence has slowly become every neighborhood\u2019s neighborhood ice cream shop. Petryk now boasts a baker\u2019s dozen of stores. None are franchises. But Petryk takes pride in the humanity of every one. His ice cream scoopers come from the same offbeat pool that births baristas \u2013 throughout the \u201880s J.P Licks was the unofficial employment center of MassArt. With the new Assembly Row location, J.P Licks has hit a milestone. It has now maxed out the production of its Jamaica Plain facility, where ice cream is made from scratch, coffee is roasted and yogurt is frozen. \u201cIt was completely by accident. We\u2019ve never had a five-year growth plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nFrozen yogurt will never beat ice cream at being ice cream. As a substitute, it\u2019s a health conscious necessary evil. But froyo is great at being froyo. \u201cFrozen yogurt is absolutely not the bad guy,\u201d BerryLine founder Matthew Wallace insists. As customers realize that tart yogurt is the ideal creamy delivery system for fresh fruit toppings, the city has been overrun with frozen yogurt specialty stores. BerryLine is the local entrant in a market crowded by national chains, like its Harvard Square archrival Pinkberry. Does the frogurt taste better because it was founded in Cambridge by MIT and Harvard post-docs? Perhaps.Perhaps. But its coffee shop environs certainly feel a lot more comfortable than sterile corporate franchises.<\/p>\n
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