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This is the time of year when ice cream junkies like me can indulge their habit without attracting undue attention. The long light days and warmth of Portland summer have everyone out looking to cool off and chill out. And there is no tonic quite like a frozen treat to satisfy nearly everyone.
Here is a short list of favorites, and specific reasons to visit each of them. Show your support before the seasonal return to charcoal skies and perpetual chill dampness, when only the hardcores will still be out and about with cones and cups.
Pinolo Gelateria
Since the doors opened in 2015, Pinolo has been Portland’s frozen confection standard-bearer. Back in the early days, you could wander in and pick out your favorite gelato or sorbet flavor and be eating it in moments, even in high summer, while the more credulous ice cream eaters waited in long lines at Brand X down the street. No more: The magic of Sandro Paolini’s products is now well recognized. Though year-round gelato icons—Sicilian pistachio, fior di latte, stracciatella, among others—are creamy perfection, the dairy-free seasonal fruit sorbettos merit highest accolades. Produced from local fruit in nature’s cycle, the flavors are never too sweet and often taste more like the fruit than the fruit itself. Recent incarnations of raspberry, peach, and melon/mint were inspired, as always. 3707 SE Division St., 503-719-8686, pinologelato.com. 11:30 am–10:30 pm daily (summer hours).
Cornet Custard
Frozen custard is the egg-rich, more luxurious cousin of ice cream. It was a rare sight in Portland until Mika Paredes—now doing double duty as executive chef at L’Échelle restaurant next door—and the late chef Naomi Pomeroy started slinging the stuff as a weekend hustle at a flower shop in Northeast Portland. Word seeped out, and this small shop, kitted out in lavender paint and white tile, opened last summer on a now-bustling block along Southeast Division Street. The variety of flavors, which rotate biweekly (give or take), is limited only by Paredes’ and her team’s imaginations and the capacity of the shop. Current favorites include Coconut Almond Joy and butterscotch, though they may be gone by the time you read this. Who knows what might be next? You can always find lime coconut, a vegan variation, and Madagascar vanilla. Beware, batches are small, so gaps in availability can occur. 4529 SE Division St., cornetpdx.com. 1–9:30 pm Wednesday, noon–10:30 pm Thursday–Saturday, noon–9:30 pm Sunday (summer hours).
Ome Calli
As more and better restaurants have migrated to Beaverton, it is comforting to know that post-prandial frozen treats awaits nearby. Ome Calli (meaning “second home” in the Nahuatl tongue) distinguishes itself with a broad array of flavors and delivery systems far more common in Mexico City than Portland. Among the ice cream flavors one is unlikely to find elsewhere in town, consider a sweet scoop of corn or perhaps nonalcoholic tequila, distinctive mamey, or even cotija cheese. These, and many more common flavors, are only the beginning. There are also sorbets including guava, tamarind with chile, and chamoy, a ubiquitous-in-Mexico sweet-salty plum flavor. What makes Ome Calli worth inclusion on any “best of” list, however, are its paletas, simple frozen fruit flavors on a stick that have an amazing capacity to surmount summer swelter. I always order a guanabana (or soursop) paleta, which has an ineffable lightly sweet and fruity, almost melonlike flavor that works as a terrific thirst-quencher. 12795 SW Canyon Road, Beaverton, 971-246-0278, omecallifrozentreats.com. Noon–8 pm daily.
Kulfi
Its original space, just off Northeast Alberta Street, was about the size of a closet. New digs, in a storefront on North Williams Avenue where another ice cream shop used to be, are larger, but only somewhat more prominent. So if you were unaware of this shop specializing in South Asian frozen treats, that would be understandable. Stop here for its namesake product in frozen pop form. Kulfi is similar to ice cream but is unchurned and far more dense as a result. Kulfi’s dairy and sugar base is slowly cooked down over low heat and flavored before freezing. The couple who operate the shop are especially proud of their Rose City variety featuring a kulfi base incorporating rose water, cardamom, pistachios, and a unique red sweet squash called roohafza. Another traditional option is malai, which is the caramelized milk base on its own. I am partial to the intensely flavored Major Mango. The regular ice cream flavors, such as salted jaggery caramel and turmeric-enhanced Golden Milk Honeycomb, cover even more ground than their kulfi counterparts. Finally, Indian expats and visitors from Edison, N.J. (Indian American population, 35%), alike will delight in Kulfi’s faloodah, a textural mashup of ice cream, crunchy noodles, slippery basil seeds, jelly, nuts, sweetened milk, and one of several flavorings. 3540 N Williams Ave., 503-206-5973, kulfipdx.com. 1–10 pm daily.
Cloud City
This is as close as it gets to the old-fashioned, all-American ice cream parlor, sans any phony, marketing-driven corporate bullshit. Fresh-faced kids scoop their hearts out to an ever-present conga line of eager patrons that manages to move along with reasonable dispatch. Sadly, except for Woodstock-area residents, it takes some commitment to get there. You will not regret the trek, however, especially once you read owner Bryan Garner’s heart-tugging inspiration for opening the shop on the Cloud City website. In a nutshell, the place is a tribute to his mom, who died of cancer just before Garner signed the lease in 2011. There are about 30 housemade flavors and options, including gluten-free, vegan, and seasonal offerings; milkshakes; and sundaes with traditional toppings. Of course, there are simple scoops, such as bourbon vanilla, chocolate and Oregon strawberry, but Cloud City is the perfect place for unabashed maximalism. Why not order Circus Friends, with frosted animal crackers and rainbow sprinkles; Gold Digger, chocolate ice cream incorporating peanut butter sauce and pieces of peanut butter cup; or marionberry crisp utilizing the definitive Oregon blackberry and gluten-free oat crisp in a mascarpone ice cream base? 4525 SE Woodstock Blvd., cloudcityicecream.com. Noon–10 pm daily.
