New York food: ice cream

Do you think of "ice cream" when you think of New York foods? Either we were really lucky, or we should all be rethinking what foods are authentically "New York," because we found multiple excellent New York ice cream places!

Made right in Brooklyn, Ample Hills Creamery offers pure, simple, sugary joy at locations in Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan and even . . . New Jersey. Not only do they pasteurize their own milk but they also bake their own mix-ins.

Ample Hills Creamery at Gotham West Market

The location we visited was in Gotham West Market, but it's now closed. There we ordered a sundae with a scoop of ooey gooey butter cake ice cream and butter pecan brittle ice cream on a slice of warm ooey gooey butter cake with hot fudge and whipped cream. After that description, we probably don't need to elaborate on how good it was, but everything melded together into a buttery, sweet, creamy, chewy, warm, cold ball of amazingness. (I know, I should be a food writer.)

Ample Hills Creamery ooey gooey butter cake sundae

Started by a Sicilian immigrant to bring joy to people, L'Arte del Gelato creates authentic Sicilian gelato with Italian flavors.

gelato selection

For our final dessert in the city, we headed over to L'Arte del Gelato in Chelsea Market, one of several Manhattan locations. I had half mascarpone, half panna cotta, and Sarah got half biscotti and half amarena variegato (sour cherry). Four halves made more than two thumbs up on both flavor and texture. We particularly enjoyed how well our pairings went together.

Amarena variegato and biscotti and mascarpone and panna cotta gelato

Shake Shack

Shake Shack FiDi Fudge concrete

At this point, Shake Shack had not reached our homes, so we sought out the chain and settled on two shackburgers and a small FiDi Fudge concrete (which supposedly didn't have cocoa powder because they were out, #weird, but seemed fine?). The chunks of chewy, dense chocolate truffle cookie dough in the creamy frozen custard were a rich, chocolatey treasure! The crispy crinkle fries were also quite good.

We have plenty of other recommendations if you're looking for New York foods, including New York pastries, doughnuts in New York, New York cheesecakes, other desserts around New York, and savory foods in New York!