Best Ice Cream in New England: Roadfood's Search
Friend of Serious Eats and Roadfooder Stephen Rushmore embarked on an insane 50-stop journey with two other Roadfooders, searching for the best ice cream in New England. They covered six states and hundreds of miles and came to some surprising conclusions. Stephen gave us the scoop on his incredible ice cream journey.
"It took about two places before we nailed down our ordering methodology," Rushmore said. "One of the great things about ice creameries is that you get to try before you buy. We [fellow Roadfooders Chris Ayers and Amy Briesch] took full advantage of this. We each sampled about two to three different flavors to get a feel for how well the place was going to score. When we finally got around to ordering, we always had vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce and then a double or triple scoop of several other flavors."
So what's the top spot in the former colonies? "The absolute best ice cream in New England can be found in Maine," Rushmore said. "You need to travel three hours north of Boston to Tubby's Ice Cream in Wayne for the most natural tasting, texturally pleasing, sweet creamery in New England. We thoroughly enjoyed Tree Hugger Ice Cream, which is like your mom's apple crumble with a velvet textured maple ice cream pleasantly interrupted by rolled oats. If high gas prices prevent you from driving long distances, our number two favorite was Shaw's Ridge Farm in Sanford, Maine. Caffeine junkies should order the super-intense Grammy Shaw's Coffee Ice Cream. Our third favorite and the winner in the Boston metro category was Herrell's. Order a Chocolate Pudding Ice Cream and you will have childhood memories of eating Fudgesicles on a hot summer day."
The only other ice cream that received Rushmore's highest five-cone rating was Sundae School on Cape Cod (they visited the Dennisport location).
Rushmore says that much of the hot fudge they sampled was not so hot. "A couple of noteworthy items really stood out during this experience," he said. "First, it's astonishing how many places go through the trouble of making ice cream from scratch yet serve canned hot fudge sauce on their sundaes. We estimated only 20 percent of the places served homemade sauces. The other surprising moment occurred while developing our shortlist of creameries—Vermont, the dairy capital of the Northeast, has virtually no homemade hard-served ice cream stands. Everyone knows Ben & Jerry's [disqualified from the survey as a national label], but can you name two other places?"
I've never sampled any of Rushmore's highest rated licks (it kills me to admit that), but I have had very good ice cream at a couple of his better-known also-rans, including Toscanini's in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Dr. Mike's in Bethel, Connecticut.
New Englanders take their ice cream seriously, so there's bound to be some controversy surrounding the Roadfood picks. I can't quarrel with any of the choices. I just hope Rushmore asks me to go on the next ice cream exploration.
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29 Comments:
Wow, it sounds like they had an amazing adventure. I would love to drop everything and embark on a hunt for the best ice cream. At least now I can fantasize about it! =)
Laryssa at 9:31AM on 07/14/08
Well, having grown up in the New Haven area of CT, I'm sad that Ashley's ice cream seems not to have even been mentioned. However I've never been to any of the other locations, and however good I may think Ashley's is, its entirely possible that they just don't measure up. Its probably just nostalgia more than anything else for me :)
erichan726 at 10:00AM on 07/14/08
Are you kidding about Herrell's? It's not even the best in Cambridge.
justcook at 11:18AM on 07/14/08
Herrell is still making a living off of Steve's Ice Cream, THE place to go in the mid 70's. Reading the post, it's obvious that they visited many locations throughout New England, but I can't see them making a pronouncement of The Best based on their tasting methods. It would take a general referendum, and there'd still be doubts as to who's ice cream is best. Like Richardson's.
jayfallon at 11:45AM on 07/14/08
I miss my seedless black raspberry ice cream that I used to live on in New England. MMMmmmmm a scoop of that and a scoop of chocolate - Heaven!
sylphon at 12:57PM on 07/14/08
Strange that they missed Somerset Creamery as well, which is very close to Ben & Bill's Chocolate Emporium on the Cape.
casperOne at 1:00PM on 07/14/08
naw erichan, it is all about ashleys! I bet they didn't bother stopping by. their hot fudge is killer.
(although wentworth's is also great... dilemmas...)
like10thousand at 1:43PM on 07/14/08
i love ashley's and wentworth's! I grew up in north haven, so both were staples. :)
mrsbao at 2:09PM on 07/14/08
You didn't stop for Custard in Falmouth/Yarmouth/Freeport (it's on the border of one of them, technically it's probably in Freeport)? I guess it's not really ice cream, but it certainly blows ice cream out of the running.
Monkey4Sale at 2:37PM on 07/14/08
We visited Ashley's in New Haven and loved it. You can read about it here: http://www.roadfooddigest.com/post/2008/06/Ice-Cream-Stop-39---Ashleys-Ice-Cream2c-New-Haven2c-CT.aspx
The Coffee Oreo was exceptional.
Stephen Rushmore at 2:45PM on 07/14/08
Lago's in Rye, NH (next door to Portsmouth) makes some of the meanest ice cream I have ever had. The black raspberry truffle is to DIE for.
veggieout at 3:22PM on 07/14/08
Lago's in Rye, NH (next door to Portsmouth) makes some of the meanest ice cream I have ever had. The black raspberry truffle is to DIE for.
veggieout at 3:23PM on 07/14/08
What?!?! Herrell's???
Come on serious eaters! What about Christina's in Inman Sq, or Kimball farms in Central Mass?
danielle719 at 3:44PM on 07/14/08
I second Christina's in Inman Square. They have some tasty ice cream. Possibly the best variety and the best textural execution.
angrywayne at 4:58PM on 07/14/08
You didn't go to Big Daddy's on Rt. 1 in Wells???!!! Great old fashioned ice cream and shakes!
Deb07 at 11:44PM on 07/14/08
We used to swear that Ashley's Coffee Oreo was quite possibly the greatest single scoop of ice cream ever made, so we certainly hear you! After visiting so many ice cream shops around New England though, it still ranks highly but just isn't at the very top of our list.
The best part of doing the ice cream tour was finding out all of these additional suggestions from everyone! We are hoping to visit a bunch more (in a less formal sort of way!) in the future!
ayersian at 9:15AM on 07/15/08
Glad they got in Dr. Mike's in Bethel, CT (there's also another location in Monroe). The chocolate lace is amazing, although I have the worst—or best, depending on how you see it—bomb of a food coma. Definitely stick with a child's serving, as it's more than enough...
I've also got to mention the Creamery in Newtown, CT. Apt name for sure. ;)
Emily Koh at 9:57AM on 07/15/08
What about Kimball Farm Ice Cream in Carlisle, Mass?! Their ice cream is so good, and it looks like the Roadfooders sampled it. That's their cup in the bottom center of the pictures above. Did it just not fit in the article?
butterface at 10:49AM on 07/15/08
Yes, we did visit Kimball Farms...and could not believe their HUGE portions! All 50 places just simply couldn't fit in the short article above! For the full list, check out www.roadfooddigest.com and click on The Best New England Ice Cream!
ayersian at 11:00AM on 07/15/08
I was talking about Maine, to specify.
Monkey4Sale at 11:42AM on 07/15/08
@daniell719 and butterface - Kimball's? Really? I think Brigham's is better than Kimball's. (Also, it's definitely not in central Mass! Bedford's still considered metro-Boston....)
@JayFallon - When Steve's closed, they were handing out all their old signs and equipment - I still have the wooden "Junior Mints" sign from their flavors board! Tear.
embolini9 at 12:52PM on 07/15/08
I'm glad they came to Lizzy's here in Waltham, MA, but I'm disappointed that they only gave it 3 out of 5 scoops. IMHO it's vastly superior to Herrell's. Perhaps they need to try some different flavors than the ones they had. I'd recommend the Maple Walnut, the Black Raspberry and, most importantly, the Chocolate Orgy.
Amandarama at 5:38PM on 07/15/08
North Street Dairy Cone, Waterville, Maine! We did a tour of New England a year ago and sought out great ice cream. This was definitely on the A list.
litagent at 6:27PM on 07/15/08
I second Deb07 ~ You didn't go to Big Daddy's?????
izatryt at 8:53AM on 07/16/08
Did anybody else notice that Tubby's has an almost identical flavor "yellow butter brickle road" to this new Ben & Jerry's "goodbye yellow brickle road" flavor?
http://www.roadfooddigest.com/image.axd?picture=WindowsLiveWriter/IceCreamStop9TubbysWayneME_CB8C/New%20England%20Ice%20Cream%20067_3296414f-c992-412b-ac2b-c277fbf16114.jpg
thepumpkingdom at 8:57AM on 07/18/08
Kimballs isn't in Bedford, it's in Westford and Carlisle.
megannesta at 4:01PM on 07/24/08
Tubby's has had "yellow butter brickle road" on their menu cosistantly for four years. If any one is being a copy cat it's Ben & Jerrys. If you try it you will swear it's made with real butter. I enjoy Tubby's for the homemade hot fudge, butterscotch and all of their toppings, as well as the ice cream. It is a great destination, and is always very clean. I'd stack them up to any one for quality, as well as variety.
THEFATMAN at 5:39AM on 07/29/08
I agree with Ashley's and Christina's - been to both. I had Avocado Ice cream at Christina's. It was 6 years ago and I still remember it. My best friend had wasabi ice cream? I forget, it was something really strange but just delicious.
I have to say I loved Steve's Ice Cream in its hay day (I was in college in those days) and Herrell's is very good (basically the same thing and owned by the same guy - Steve Herrell).
What about Arctic Ice Cream in New London??? I think it was. My husband has a friend who lives near New London and took us there a few summers back and I had 2 flavors of ice cream. It was wonderful ice cream. The texture was great, the flavors were OOTW.
Considering that the Ben & Jerry's factory was the official B&J post, I would think they would've counted it. That factory was built way before they were a commercial interest.
When they do a report on ice cream in the South, I've got 3 places to comment on (just got back from vacation in North Carolina).
RisaG at 3:05PM on 08/07/08
Great food places smell good. If they do not, walk out. I walked out of Herrell's without ordering. If there had been no other ice cream in Cambridge, I would have ordered, but I'm not a masochist.
maxice at 6:38PM on 04/24/09