Restaurant: Ice Cream Lab
Location: 369 E 2nd St. Los Angeles, CA 90012. (424) 270-0009
Date: April 7, 2015
Cuisine: Ice Cream
Rating: Nitro Cold Stone!
I’ve had nitro ice cream at high end modernist restaurants for some years, but it was only this January that I encountered it in the form of an ice cream parlor — while up at San Francisco’s Smitten.
But it turns out LA has its own equivalent in the form of Ice Cream Lab, located in DTLA, Beverly Hills, and Pasadena.
The interior.
Some various cone options.
ICL uses a different but similar machine to Smitten. But one of the big differences is that they “mixin” various flavor combos — pretty much like Cold Stone Creamery — but all nitro frozen.
Salt Lick Crunch. All Natural vanilla ice cream mixed with pretzels, caramel, and topped with sea salt.
This was pretty awesome. Not sure if because of the creamy ice cream or because pretzels and caramel are just amazing when mixed with any kind of ice cream.
A dairy free chocolate, made with coconut milk. ‘nilla wafers. This was about as good as dairy free ice cream gets — which is to say not quite as good as the real stuff.
Overall, in my limited sample, this was good stuff and I look forward to returning. I’ve always been a sucker for mixins, so it didn’t take much arm twisting. I’m not totally sure the nitro part makes THAT much difference. Yeah, there is a nice mouth feel, but probably not as good as a great Gelato in Italy — and probably a lot more fat than that gelato.