Ice cream spots in the U.S.

Best ice cream spots in the U.S.

By Food & Wine Staff 

Whether it's a Good Humor bar or $10 sundae, Americans love ice cream—and fantastic parlors are creating brilliant flavors with ultracreamy textures to entice us. Here, Food & Wine presents the top artisanal, exotic, and nostalgic frozen desserts across the country.

  

Brooklyn: Blue Marble 

Blue Marble 

Signature Item: Strawberry ice cream

All the ice creams here are made with organic NYMilk products from grass-fed cows in upstate New York.

Moomers 

Traverse City, Mich.: 

Moomers Homemade Ice Cream 

Signature Item: Cherries Moobilee ice cream (made with local cherries)

The hands-down favorite of locals. The deck offers views of grazing dairy cows. 

Missoula, Mont.: 

Big Dipper Ice Cream 

Big Dipper Ice Cream 

Signature Item: Huckleberry ice cream (made with local berries)

The inspired flavors range from El Salvador Coffee to Honey Porter. 

  

Maple View Farm and Dairy 

Hillsborough, N.C.: 

Maple View Farm and Dairy 

Signature Item: Carolina Crunch (vanilla ice cream with bits of Heath Bar, Butterfinger, caramel cups, and a 

caramel swirl)

This family-owned dairy farm just outside Chapel Hill opened its ice cream 

shop in 2000.

Portsmouth, N.H.: 

Annabelle's Natural Ice Cream 

Annabelle's Natural Ice Cream 

Signature Item: 

Mint Summer Night's Dream (mint chocolate ice cream with dark and white chocolate chunks)

This hugely popular shop right on the Portsmouth waterfront serves all-natural ice cream in more than 30 regular flavors, plus rotating seasonal ones. 

Cool Moon Ice Cream 

Portland, Ore.: 

Cool Moon Ice Cream 

Signature Item: 

Wicked Chocolate ice cream

Among the local ingredients used at this Pearl District shop: Oregon bing cherries for its Bing Cherry Almond Chip, and hazelnut butter and toasted hazelnuts from orchards 20 miles away for its Willamette Valley Hazelnut.

Kansas City, Mo.: 

Glacé Artisan Ice Cream 

Glacé Artisan Ice Cream 

Signature Item: 

Goat Cheese and Honey ice cream

Christopher Elbow is just as boundary-pushing with his ice creams, in flavors like Salted Pretzel and Persian Spice, as he is with his stellar artisan chocolates. 

Mora Iced Creamery 

Bainbridge Island, Wash.: 

Mora Iced Creamery 

Signature Item: Swiss Chocolate ice cream

A Bainbridge Island favorite owned and operated by two Argentinian expats; the superb ice cream, made in small batches, comes in flavors like Dulce de Leche and Gianduja.

Sharon, Mass.: 

Crescent Ridge Dairy Bar 

Crescent Ridge Dairy Bar 

Signature Item: Black Bear (red raspberry ice cream with chocolate chips and chocolate raspberry truffles)

The ice cream here is made in small batches from a 40-year-old recipe. 

Molly Moon Ice Cream 

Seattle: Molly Moon Ice Cream 

Signature Item: Theo Chocolate (dark chocolate ice cream made with melted 

Theo bars)

Molly Moon Neitzel uses mostly local fruit to flavor her ice creams—the farthest south she goes for fruit is Napa Valley for blood oranges