I’m a big fan of frozen treats – gelato, frozen yogurt, popsicles, bon bons, cookie dough, sorbet, even. My neighborhood, the Beverly Hills golden triangle, offers lots of options for frozen desserts. Here’s my list, including some establishments that don’t specialize in desserts but could easily be dessert destinations. It wouldn’t make sense to list all local restaurants that have ice cream or gelato on the menu, but I will say that the gelato at Il Pastaio is amazing.
Il Cono
9461 Santa Monica Blvd. | site
Focus: gelato, sorbetto
My favorite gelataria in town serves both the browns (nutella, chocolate, tiramisu, cappuccino) and the brights (watermelon, strawberry, limoncello). The flavors are true to their namesakes, and the selction is traditionally Italian. The texture is a bit too close to ice cream, though – not enough ribboning, too creamy. Also, it’s $6.50 for a regular cup of two flavors.
Gelato bar at Whole Foods
239 N. Crescent Dr. | site
Focus: gelato
Would be my favorite if the freezer were cooler. As is, the gelato is served melted, like an icy pudding. The flavor and texture are right on, though, and the varieties are delicious and often atypical (e.g. blood orange). It’s really too bad that a technical glitch gets in the way of what would be the best gelato in town. Of course, there are lots of additional options in the store’s freezer, but they’re generally not sold as single servings. The store features indoor and outdoor seating.
sno:la
244 N Beverly Dr. | site
Focus: organic frozen yogurt and cremita
sno:la offers both yogurt and cremita without fat and white sugar. The six trendy flavors are Italian tart, pomegranate, sour cherry, chocolate cremita, dulce de leche, and fig & date. More notable are the 36 toppings, including some sour cherry amazingness that’s worth the trip alone. The yogurt itself is unremarkable, and worse – served with wooden spoons that render each bite with a paper-y aftertaste. Bring your own spoon and focus on the toppings.
yogen früz
9401 Brighton Way | site
Focus: custom mixed frozen yogurt
This brightly decorated shop shares the pink and sky blue palette of Sanrio’s Little Twin Stars, and that’s a branding formula that’s worked for the chain’s 1100 shops. The draw is the customization: you choose a base and add fruit to create your own flavor. The fruit they blend into the yogurt is frozen but excellent. Mine brought out the best in the cherry I chose, and that is in no small part due to the excellent yogurt base. I picked the low fat vanilla, the most decadent of the three vanilla variations of non-fat, sugar-free non-fat, and low fat. The smooth, rich yogurt was prepared at the optimal temperature, and it boasts some probiotics which you can pretend balance the junk you can choose for toppings.
Rite Aid (née Thrifty’s)
300 N Canon Dr. | site
Focus: American ice cream served in tubular scoops
Known for cheap prices and tubular scoops, Thrifty’s ice cream counter is a Beverly Hills tradition. It’s located within a 24 hour Rite Aid drug store that serves local tweens in the evening and burnout stars from rock’s past at odd night hours. In other words, Rite Aid is Beverly Hills’ quintessentially local ice cream place. A single scoop is just $1.19, and a double goes for $1.69. People who grew up with this ice cream love it. I haven’t and don’t.
Photo by mark.hogan on Flickr
Al Gelato
806 S Robertson Blvd. | site
Focus: gelato and Italian desserts
Al Gelato serves about 20 flavors that respect Italian traditions. The flavors taste true to their origins but diluted, and the gelato fails on temperature and texture. It’s served too cold to enjoy, which means it’s a chore to dig into the ice cream. Each tiny frozen sliver doens’t really satisfy as a creamy spoonful in Italy (or, rather, mini paddle-ful). The texture is more creamy and watery than traditional, ribbony gelato. It’s like too-frozen Ben & Jerry’s in Italian flavors. I like Ben & Jerry’s, but I prefer my gelato to feel like gelato.
Also stay away from the food. Chef Boyardee would be embarrassed to serve me the pasta I got at Al Gelato: spaghetti with ketchup-like sauce and a meatloaf-sized meatball. Mine is the minority’s opinion. People love this place. I think it’s partially due to the dated, unpolished 80s decor. It lends the place the atmosphere of a home-brewed hole in the wall, so people feel as though they discovered something.
FreshMarket Café at Neiman Marcus
9700 Wilshire Blvd. | site
Focus: soft serve frozen yogurt
The FreshMarket cafe on the 3rd floor is like a diner updated with an eye for modern design and appetite. It offers classic deli sandwiches and salads as well as dessert standards like muffins and cookies. I think the frozen yogurt stands in for a diner’s ice cream/milk shake/malt selection. It’s served in a glass dish with a pedestal, and hot fudge is a recommended addition. The texture is watery, which I prefer to the fluffy chemical composition in most standard yogurt places. It’s not extraordinary, but I love having it with a friend during a stroll through my favorite store. (Hi, Emily!!)
Barney Greengrass at Barneys New York
9570 Wilshire Blvd. | site
Focus: sorbet
The original Barney Greengrass is a Jewish deli on the Upper West Side in Manhattan. The Beverly Hills location spans a dining room, a bar, a chef’s table, and a beautiful balcony, all atop Barneys. The menu offers refined renditions of traditional deli fare with prices to match the setting; the smoked fish are amazing, and sandwiches cost about twice as much as they would in unironic delis. In other words, the menu better suits the second floor than the Co-op level. You can have sorbet, but you’d be missing out on rugelach, babka, and halvah. I can’t recommend deliberately making this error in judgment, and fortunately, the sorbet isn’t compelling enough to push a diner away from the blintzes. But if you want a great view with your frozen treat, Barney Greengrass will make you very happy.
Cafe Angelina
430 N Bedford Dr.
Focus: standard frozen yogurt
The sky blue chairs and airy setting make this spot a bright one on a street heavily dappled with doctors’ offices. The shop offers about seven flavors, and a couple tend to be more extreme diet-style options spanning the non fat/non dairy/non sugar spectrum. Some people crave the traditional, filler-laden yogurt, and Angelina serves this dessert in a cheerful setting. I’d prefer to walk a couple of blocks for something better, but I suppose it’s a decent, convenient compromise for people who come for medical appointments and have a moment to spare for a predictable dessert.
Teuscher
9548 Brighton Way | site
Focus: prepackaged gelato
This outpost of the Swiss chocolatier offers some of the best chocolate in the world, and the shop feels like a party for all your childhood birthday present wishes. The chocolates can be packaged in whimsical paper boxes shaped and decorated like toy animals in bright, crayon colors. There’s also a coffee bar which serves espresso drinks and pastries to the retail area as well as to the outdoor tables, through a quick access window. And it’s all in a tiny space of about 200 square feet. If you can maintain your focus on frozen treats, Teuscher has a mini freezer with prepackaged gelato in four flavors. The gelato is delicious, and its texture is wonderful for the US. The tiny dose is surprisingly sufficient, making the Teuscher gelato a highly recommended, convenient treat.
Pinkberry
9409 Santa Monica Blvd, 240 S Beverly Dr.
Focus: tart frozen yogurt
Pinkberry’s tart, yogurt-flavored frozen yogurt launched not only a wave of imitators but the comeback of frozen yogurt at large, nicely timed with the resurgence of the 80s in certain fashion circle. The Santa Monica Boulevard Pinkberry is the first in Beverly Hills, nestled among hair salons and just a few blocks east of Sprinkles. The South Beverly branch is more spacious and sells select table top pieces by Alessi. It’s right near Mulberry’s and Burger 90210, both recommended if you’re planning some meals around your next yogurt trips.
Baskin Robbins
271 N Canon Dr. | site
Focus: ice cream, ice cream cakes
This outpost of the known chain serves the usual flavor assortment in a generic setting. Stepping inside the shop is definitely a break from the whole Beverly Hills-ness of the Golden Triangle; the spray tanned and zealously enhanced local patrons don’t stop by that often. Bonus: ice cream cakes!
Cold Stone Creamery
250 S Beverly Dr. | site
Focus: ice cream with custom blend-ins
Cold Stone mixes your choice of ingredients into their ice cream, places the confection into an oft-edible vessle, and straddles on lush, traditionally American toppings. The base itself is more than creamy enough to live up to the chain’s name. It’s all too much for me, actually, but I can see and smell the appeal as I walk by. The scent of freshly baking waffle cones is definitely tempting.
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