Here’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. Below is the list of where you should be getting your ice cream in the Big Apple, whether you’re a tourist or a local. The Instagram posts alone should have you craving ice cream, and when you are, you can rely on any of these places — I guarantee they’ll surpass your expectations. Here are all the places you can get the best ice cream in NYC, guaranteed.
If you’re looking for a tourist in the Big Apple, head on over to this shop. With a fresh take on old-school soft serve, Big Gay Ice Cream integrates fun, unique ice cream creations with colorful toppings. They also have frozen treats that appeal to our dairy-free friends.
2. 10Below Ice Cream
10Below Ice Cream is New York’s first establishment that started serving Thai-inspired ice cream rolls. The servers roll each individual ice cream order with your choice of the freshest ingredients right in front of your eyes. 10Below is another huge hit with tourists and New York City residents alike.
Davey’s Ice Cream has everything—custom-made cakes, killer ice cream sandwiches, milkshakes, and ice cream scoops that will basically topple over the waffle cone. ZAGAT says this parlor “nails it,” and it earned a strong 4.5/5 stars on Yelp. Check it out!
4. Morgenstern’s Finest Ice Cream
This modern ice cream parlor has creative flavors accompanied by gourmet sundae toppings. We’re talking avocado ice cream toast, salted caramel pretzels, burnt sage ice cream, and butterscotch bangers. They even offer delicious sorbet. Let’s be real, though, you’re not going to Morgenstern’s just for sorbet right?
5. Ample Hills Creamery
While ice cream may not be healthy, this is the place for anyone who is slightly health-conscious. Ample Hills Creamery makes a concerted effort to provide the freshest ingredients, using hormone-free milk, ingredients made from scratch, and organic pure cane sugar. Along with fun flavors, Ample Hills gives their scoops creative cones such as pretzel cones and chocolate chip cones.
6. Holey Cream
This place combines two of America’s favorites: ice cream and donuts. Holey Cream is known for its build-your-own donut ice cream sandwich. If that’s not enough, Holey Cream is also a bakery.
7. Milk Bar
Milk Bar is best known for its amazing cakes, but people always forget about its two great soft serve combos. Featuring a unique milk-flavored soft serve ice cream, Milk Bar offers sprinkles and corn flakes as toppings. With the corn flakes, it tastes as if you’re eating the delicious last bites at the bottom of a cereal bowl.
8. Amorino
Half the reason I even stepped into Amorino was for the Snapchat picture. Workers sculpt flowers on the fresh waffle cones with as many flavors as you’d like, topping off the creation with a macaroon for the perfect first bite.
9. Ice & Vice
Ice & Vice is an experimental ice cream shop that pushes the boundaries when it comes to dessert. This shop turns regular vanilla ice cream into ART. I mean, just look at the picture above — have you ever seen anything more overwhelming, yet beautiful?
10. Emack & Bolio’s
With ice cream, frozen yogurt, and ice cream pizzas, Emack & Bolio’s gives you the whole package. This dessert shop actually invented the flavored cone in 1980 (we thank you immensely). The store’s toppings include Froot Loops, Fruity Pebbles, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and melted marshmallows. The workers at Emack & Bolio’s call themselves “magicians,” and I don’t think they’re far off.
11. Eggloo
Eggloo is the original Hong Kong waffle shop that provides a unique experience to every individual customer. What makes it so unique? Unlimited toppings. UNLIMITED. Not only is it high-quality ice cream, but this shop wins the “more bang for your buck” award… who doesn’t love bargain ice cream deals?
12. OddFellows Ice Cream Co.
Oddfellows pasteurizes its own ice cream base in order to add more nuance and depth into the ice cream flavors. It offers inventive flavors while also sticking to traditional ice cream roots.
13. Black Tap NYC
I knew I couldn’t forget Black Tap even though it is one of the most famous dessert restaurants in NYC. Yes, it’s one of the most touristy places in New York, but it doesn’t disappoint. Black Tap gives you more than a meal, it gives you an experience.
14. Chloe’s Soft Serve Fruit
The soft serve creations are made with fruit, water, and a bit of organic cane sugar. It’s the perfect frozen treat without all the artificial stuff.
15. Cool Mess
Cool Mess brings a new dessert experience to NYC — you get to make your own ice cream and mix it all into one bowl of sweetness. They supply the ingredients and the tools for your mixture, and the rest is in your hands.
16. Eat Me Ice Cream
Two women are dedicated to making unique pairings work as desserts. Though the combinations are strange, these ladies are clearly doing something right — blueberry and vanilla ice cream sandwiched between oatmeal cookies? Yes, please!
17. Sundaes and Cones
What’s that grey stuff, you ask? Low and behold, it’s ice cream from the one and only Sundaes and Cones. This joint offers weird but oddly satisfying flavors—I’m talking wasabi, ginger, corn, tiramisu, and black sesame. Its mission is to bring classic savory flavors to the dessert table!
18. Mikey Likes It Ice Cream
How can you go wrong at a place that has “Mac Daddies” and “Foxy Browns” on their menu? This hole-in-the-wall is similar to International Delight Café on Long Island, except the workers sandwich your waffles and ice cream.
19. Fresco Gelateria
Fresco Gelateria gives you the whole package from start to finish — the workers make the gelato for you on site from scratch. The flavors range from traditional to risky, but the bold moves have since been in their favor.
20. Kith Treats
So maybe this one isn’t exactly an ice cream place, but some would argue it’s even better. Kith Treats was New York’s first cereal bar and café. It offers cereal-based treats and other combinations you never thought were possible. Craving a Fruity Pebble milkshake? Hit up Kith!