Nice Cream
- Price Range:
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$$$
8 reviews for Nice Cream
8 reviews in English
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Review from Christine O.
Chicago, IL
9/21/2010
I just ate the whole pint... yeah.. I don't do that. I don't even particularly love ice cream. I have 2 old, crusty strawberry sorbets in the freezer right now that are too sweet or I just don't like.
Wow. It was Strawberry and Angel Food Cake. The cake almost added a cookie dough like flavor... another ice cream favorite of mine after strawberry. I am VERY excited to try new flavors and support this all local and healthy (for ice cream) venture. It isn't cheap, but you get what you pay for (a lunch in a pint :). I got it at Whole Foods- thanks for distributing in a bigger grocery store Nice Cream! -
Review from Erin G.
7/7/2010
Oh my goodness, this is fabulous. Ice cream is my favorite food group, and I was mightily intrigued by Nice Cream when I happened upon it at the Whole Foods in Boystown.
Lavender! Carrot cake! Strawberry and angel food cake! Blueberry pie! Earl Grey! Chocolate basil! New flavors seasonally, which is really fun. Every time you go shopping you can eagerly look for new flavors. Exciting!
Nice Cream is all-natural, with only a few delicious high-quality ingredients and their ingredients, packaging, everything are local. AND it's very very tasty. What's not to love?
P.S. On their website they say they can do custom flavors for parties. This, I think, would be a fantastic idea for a wedding, for the couple to have their own flavor made. -
Review from Brand H.
Chicago, IL
8/10/2011
I've had several different flavors of Nice Cream over the past year, starting with their Salted Chocolate last year, but also including Tea and Cookies, Blueberry Pie, cashew crunch, and Fresh Strawberry
Sadly, the ice cream just isn't that good. I really wanted this ice cream to be good. It's almost always an icy, over-flavored mush. The salt in the salted chocolate was utterly overpowering, and I tend to like salty/sweet combos. My half-pint of Cashew Crunch had perhaps one cashew in the entire half-pint. There is a distinct lack of quality of control.
And then, let's face it: this ice cream is insanely expensive. $6 for a half-pint? Are you joking? This is insane. If that's what it takes to assuage your boojy white guilt, then fine, I guess a couple pints a month is cheaper than therapy.
Growing up I worked in a mom-and-pop ice cream store that made their own ice cream. I know locally-produced ice cream can be cheaper than this, AND better than this. -
Review from Lakshmi R.
Chicago, IL
3/19/2010
I. Love. Ice cream. And therefore, I love Nice Cream. Why? Because they make delicious, environmentally-conscious, locally-produced ice cream. Because the owners/ice cream-makers are two of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. Because their ice cream made me the coolest girl at school.
So, turning 26 is sort of lame because it's a dumb year. I wanted to do something fun to alleviate the dumbness. How about an Ice Cream Social? OMG yes. I LOVED these when I was in 2nd grade. As I planned, I realized I wanted to do something a little classier than buying tubs of Breyer's or whatever from Jewel-Osco. And lately, I've started buying organic dairy products because as I get older, I get more and more freaked out by the scary chemicals and hormones in my food. So I did a Google search for organic ice cream in Chicago and stumbled on Nice Cream.
Kris Swanberg was so easy and fun and adorable to communicate with via email. I ordered 4 3/4 gallons of ice cream: Spicy Chocolate, Vanilla Mint Chocolate Chip, Cinnamon Apple Pie and Cinnamon Gingersnap Cookie. Some of the flavors were among their seasonal winter flavors. But we also had the option of creating our own, so my boyfriend thought up the apple pie flavor (something it turned out they had experience making). I picked the ice cream on a Saturday afternoon. Kris' husband was there to give me the ice cream and to loan me their cooler for a $20 safety deposit--how else am I going to lug around that much ice cream?
The ice cream was a HIT. About 30 people came to my party and most of the ice cream was gone. I think everyone had at least seconds. The Spicy Chocolate and Cinnamon Gingersnap were probably the most popular. The chocolate was rich and spicy and peppery, and the gingersnap was very satisfyingly gingery and chewy. I am basically ruined now for all other ice cream. Possibly so are my party guests. Everyone has been raving about the ice cream ever since. I am sooo pleased with myself for finding Nice Cream and I can't wait to find out what their spring seasonal flavors are!
The ice cream is expensive, yes, but that's fine with me: the product is perfect, it keeps the cows happy, and you're supporting a local business run by, yes, the nicest people ever. I am definitely returning for the next party this spring! -
Review from Jessica D.
Chicago, IL
6/1/2010
I rarely eat ice cream because, if you know me, you know that when I do dairy, I prefer yogurt, and that dairy in general freaks me out. But once in a rare while I have some ice cream, and when I do, it's Nice Cream.
Why? Because the product is natural, the flavors are seasonal, it's locally made and carried largely in independent grocers and cafes, and because it's tasty. The owners make things that I would make, were I to make my own ice cream. They use ingredients like basil, chilies, lavender, and other semi-weird things that I love. Yeah, I could get a vanilla ice cream. Or I could get lavender vanilla. I could get mango sorbet. Or I could get mango chili sorbet. Why not?
My only wish is that Nice Cream would experiment with soy ice creams. I don't mean a full on transition. I just mean that maybe they could do soy ice creams for one flavor in the fall and winter, when sorbets are less welcome. Something soy and rich and creamy would be amazing. I also hope that they'll do something with lemongrass in the future. Maybe for one of those soy ice creams, or maybe in a nice sorbet this summer. Who knows?Listed in: Let, Let Me Go: Places I'm A…
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Review from Robyn T.
8/3/2010
Yum! Organic and local ice cream? Yes please! I feel like I've been reading so much about Nice Cream (and drooling every time I did) that it was high time I actually got to taste some of this summer treat. Luckily Nice Cream now has a booth at the Hull House Farmer's Market (Tuesdays until mid-October) on UIC's campus on Halsted at Polk.
I tasted peaches and cream as well as strawberry and pound cake (love that they use other local vendors like Southport Grocery for ingredients) but my favorite was the chocolate basil. Deep rich chocolate infused with basil. Delicious!
Why 4 and not 5 stars? I know that I'm going to pay more for something that is local and homemade but for $3 for a scoop it would have been awesome to have a locally made cone too...right? -
Review from Dane K.
5/27/2010
Nice cream mannn!
Nice Cream is ice cream locally made somewhere around California/Division from what I understand.
I've been buying it at Whole Foods in Lakeview... It's not very inexpensive but it's been on sale. It's very, very good.
I went through a lavender ice cream making kick last year and my friends got so sick of it they made me stop. Now I don't have to make it myself, they make a lavender flavor. It's quite good.
I've had the Earl Gray as well. I love Earl Grey... it's like Fruit Loops for grownups. This is very gourmet, with a hint of orange peel in it. Love it.
My favorite, though, is their carrot cake. It's great stuff, very cream cheesy... And my favorite part of carrot cake is the topping. So this is perfect for me. Probably not too good for you. But it's good stuff.
Their packaging is cute, too. -
Review from Luke S.
Menlo Park, CA
10/4/2010
I happened on a free tasting that Kris was running at Provenance (a seemingly well-curated cheese and wine place in Lincoln Square that employs very friendly staff). No joke, the burnt caramel crunch was the best ice cream I've ever tasted. Really expensive (though I know it's costly to produce small quantities of artisinal-quality foods). But wow. Best ice cream ever.
