NYC: Salt & Straw – Upper West Side

Salt & Straw opened their first NYC shop last month on the Upper West Side, and ever since I’ve found out, I’ve been wanting to go, so last weekend, we walked over to Amsterdam Avenue and joined the slow-moving line of other Salt & Straw fans (there were a lot that day) outside the shop.

I first tried Salt & Straw in LA almost 10 years ago, and I immediately fell in love with the bold flavors. It was at Salt & Straw that I tried goat cheese ice cream for the first time, and even though we’ve seen a bunch of ice cream brands doing wild and crazy flavors in recent years, to me, Salt & Straw were the pioneers when it comes to adventurous ice cream.

Salt & Straw are famous for their generous sampling policy. There’s even a sign in the store saying “We Highly Recommend Tasting it All”, so don’t hold back and sample at least a couple of flavors outside your comfort zone. You might discover a new favorite.

At Salt & Straw you can order single or double scoops, and you can also split a scoop and try two different flavors for an additional 50cents. If you’re hungry, or if you have someone to share with, you can also order the Flight, which is 4 scoops of your choice and which comes with little pieces of waffle cone on the side. We were eager to try as many different flavors as possible, so we went for the Flight.

Here are the scoops we had:

Chocolate Babka with Hazelnut Fudge: This flavor is exclusively available at the Upper West Side shop, and which is made with the award-winning babka from Breads Bakery and homemade hazelnut fudge. It was good, but a little too sweet for my liking.

Strawberry Honey Balsamic with Black Pepper: The balsamic and the black pepper really make the strawberry flavor pop. This is a light and delicious flavor, that I would easily order again. Tasted even better with a piece of waffle.

Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons: Hand-burned caramel with a touch of Guatemalan fleur de sel. Impossible to go wrong with, but the least adventurous of the scoops we had.

Pistachio & Ricotta Cannoli: Exclusively available at the Upper West Side shop, but this flavor is so ridiculously delicious that it’s a shame to only sell it here. The pistachio ice cream is laced with whipped ricotta ribbons and has bits of cannoli shells and candied Sicilian pistachios. This was our favorite scoop by far.

Salt & Straw, 360 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10024