Summer Heat Got You Down
When the summer heat ramps up, many Valley residents seek respite in sweet frozen treats. Imagine: a waffle cone of rich ice cream dripping down your fingers or a cup of intensely fruity sorbet—so cold it gives you a brain freeze. Lucky us—we have plenty of ice cream, gelato and other frozen confection shops to soothe our fevered brows during the summer’s hottest temps. In addition to well-known chains, Phoenix is home to many small, artisan operations that handcraft their offerings with local ingredients.
Sweet Republic
Sweet Republic is an award-winning ice creamery that’s been cooling Metro Phoenix palates for 16 years. Co-owners Helen Yung and Jan Wichayanuparp—longtime business associates and friends—fell in love with Arizona while visiting Wichayanuparp’s sister. A kitchen stint working with pastry left Yung with no desire to own a restaurant, so the Cordon Bleu–trained chef and the investment banker pondered what food-related business they could start here. With Yung’s background, the pair considered a bakery, but starting their days before sunup, making things to order and dealing with perishability didn’t sound appealing. They landed on ice cream and began their adventures in confections.
“It seemed like something fun, something … doable,” said Yung. “We liked the fact that you can make everything ahead of time.”
They opened in May 2008 and before long, unusual flavors like blue cheese, salted caramel swirl and strawberry buttermilk—plus their obsessive devotion to quality—attracted national attention. In 2009, Bon Appétit named them one of the top ice cream shops in the country and the honors have only continued. At the tiny original retail spot, they added a 3,000-square-foot production space where the team produces for all three stores plus a shop in Terminal 4 at Sky Harbor.
Why has Sweet Republic garnered so many accolades? It starts with locally sourced milk, cream and eggs—and as many other local ingredients as possible—including handmade confections from the Sweet Republic kitchen. All sauces, cookies, brownie bits, almond brittle and even marshmallows are made onsite. About a third of the flavors rotate seasonally and reflect whatever holiday is happening. For instance, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day, the March menu featured Brown Bread and Irish Whiskey, while summer might bring Sweet Corn and Sweet Berry Cobbler—all in addition to menu standards like Rocky Road, Crème Brûlée and Brownie Fudge Swirl.
After years of experimentation, Yung says she has a pretty good idea about what flavors work well—garlic was a no-go, and asparagus tasted good but didn’t move well—and she also brainstorms with kitchen manager Courtney Nash, who has been with her for about a decade. Along with standard cups and cones, Sweet Republic offers creative sundaes, shakes and ice cream sandwiches. Packed pints and bags of cookies or marshmallows are also available for purchase.
Yung admitted ice cream can be a challenging, competitive business, but as long as it remains hot in Phoenix, she and Wichayanuparp won’t have to worry about demand.
Novel Ice Cream
Since opening in 2017, Novel Ice Cream has landed at the top of best-of lists everywhere from Forbes to the Phoenix New Times. With temptations like Bourbon Toffee Caramel Crunch, Butter Pecan and Cookie Monster, there’s a flavor for every taste, but Novel is best-known for its Dough Melt: a warmed, glazed donut stuffed with your choice of 12 daily flavors (eight standard and four rotating), toppings (think: childhood cereal memories) and a drizzle of chocolate, caramel or raspberry sauce. If a donut doesn’t do it for you, you can order a Leslie Knope—the same components wrapped in a waffle—not a waffle cone, but an actual waffle.
Shawn Allard bought Novel in August 2023 and plans to open additional shops. Allard says each location will still hand-make ice cream and sorbet in small batches with the highest quality ingredients—many sourced locally. The brand has a hip, retro vibe with plenty of pop culture references in their flavors. Allard says the team, which has stayed intact through the ownership transition, collaborates to create adventurous new tastes and also relies on customer feedback.
Skoop
The newest kid on the ice cream block is Skoop in Old Town Scottsdale. Shasta Keltz and her husband, Kale, spent 20 years building a successful bicycle business, Bicycle Haus, then one day she said to herself, “Holy smokes! I’m 48 and the kids are going off to college.” Her creativity was calling; she had always loved ice cream and opening an ice creamery felt like a natural fit.
She went off to Penn State’s Ice Cream Short Course and the couple added on to the bike shop to accommodate her new business—a two-story space with a walk-up window on the ground floor and a kitchen lab upstairs.
Her ice cream philosophy is simplicity. You won’t find exotic flavors here, but rather handcrafted ice cream made with a passion for the best ingredients. Keltz uses organic dairy from Straus Family Creamery in California, single-origin chocolate from Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco, caramel from Bequet in Montana and local honey from Honey Hive Farms. She spent months narrowing down the best vanilla from eight different sources around the world, and she never buys frozen fruit.
“I enjoy hand-chopping the strawberries,” she said. “I want to see each berry.”
Skoop’s flavor lineup features eight standard flavors and two rotating “lab flavors.” She makes her own waffle cones, and there are no milkshakes or sundaes—just simple scoops, pints and quarts.
“I didn’t think I could fall more in love with ice cream,” Keltz said, “but I have.”
Frost Gelato
If you prefer a bite of Italy, Frost Gelato has you covered. Based in Tucson, Frost has three Valley locations, with another planned for later this year within the redeveloped Paradise Valley Mall. Frost also has stores in Tucson, across the U.S. and in the Middle East.
Business partners Jeff Kaiserman and Stephen Ochoa grew up together in Tucson and went to U of A. After graduating, Kaiserman worked in advertising sales and Ochoa in his family’s business. After falling in love with gelato on a trip to Rome, they decided to open a gelato business.
They found a Midwestern company that would ship them gelato to sell, but the quality was nowhere near their Italian experiences. More research led them to the Carpigiani Gelato University to learn how to make it themselves.
Their first shop at Casas Adobes in Tucson was an immediate hit, but they felt they were in over their heads. They called their supplier for help, and he recommended Nazario Melchionda—the very same Italian chef who had trained them. Melchionda agreed to help them for two weeks, which became three months—until he had to return to Italy when his visa expired. Kaiserman and Ochoa helped him obtain a visa for people with exceptional abilities—there aren’t many gelato chefs in the U.S.—and he’s been working with them ever since. “We wouldn’t be here without him,” said Kaiserman.
“The first rule of gelato is that you eat it with your eyes,” says Melchionda. Stepping into a Frost shop with its muted blues and grays, your eyes are immediately drawn to the expansive glass cases filled with pans of gelato—artistically and appetizingly displayed with fresh berries, fruit slices and flowers. But the taste is what creates customers.
Frost uses no frozen fruit or mass market ingredients. The pistachios, for example, come from the foot of Mt. Etna in Sicily, where low humidity and rich volcanic soil grow the world’s best nuts. “We lose money on the pistachio and hazelnut,” said Kaiserman, “but we bring more people in the door because of the quality.”
Developing flavors is a group effort; the three brainstorm a flavor, then test and refine it. “In the beginning, we argued a lot,” said Melchionda. But the process obviously pays off: In 2019, Melchionda and Frost were honored with a best-of award at the Gelato Festival of America in Miami. And nothing makes the team happier than customers who say the gelato is as good—or better—than the gelato they had in Italy.
DIY
If cooking at home is your gig, ice cream is a bit time intensive but fairly easy. Start with the best seasonal fruit, make a batch of custard and combine them in an ice cream machine. Yesterday’s hand-crank freezers packed with ice and rock salt have been replaced by modern appliances that do the freezing and churning at the push of a button. For everything you need to know to make it yourself—and about 200 recipes—lay your hands on a copy of The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, a former pastry chef at Chez Panisse. It’s the bible of frozen desserts.
