Miami: Azucar Ice Cream (July 2016)



My spouse and I enjoyed dessert at Azucar Ice Cream on a Saturday afternoon in early July 2016. (“Azucar” means “sugar” in Spanish.) Azucar Ice Cream is a Cuban ice cream shop that is located in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, on SW 8th Street (or “Calle Ocho”, which means “Eighth Street” in Spanish) between SW 15th and 16th Avenues. The shop is open from 11:00 am daily to at least 9:00 pm (later on weekends).

What makes Azucar’s ice cream “Cuban” is because they feature Cuban ingredients and flavors, such as mantecado (Cuban vanilla), guava, corn, avocado, cafĂ© con leche, dulce de leche, plantain, sugarcane, sweet potato, flan, and mamey (a Latin fruit related to the persimmon that looks and tastes like chocolate pudding!). Their products use all-natural ingredients, some from their neighbors on Calle Ocho like El Nuevo Siglo and Los Pinarenos Fruteria. They can turn almost anything into ice cream thanks to their training at Penn State's Ice Cream University and the Frozen Dessert Institute of St. Louis. Their Abuela Maria flavor, for instance, is inspired by the Cuban snack that consists of galletas Maria tea biscuits, cream cheese, and guava paste mixed into vanilla ice cream.

You can sit at one of two or three tiny high-top tables, or on benches near the front windows that are topped with guayabera (a pleated linen fabric most often made into men’s shirts)-covered cushions wrapped in plastic, just like at your “abuela’s” (“grandmother’s”) house. A blackboard on one wall lists all the many flavors from which to choose (probably close to 50 varieties, and you can add additional toppings or have it put into specialty cones or sundaes. A freezer offers take-out ice cream in larger pint quantities. Staff is friendly and accommodating, offering miniature samples of flavors to prospective buyers.

Azucar Ice Cream opened in July 2011 and has been pleasing customers with its yummy ice cream and sorbets ever since!







 
 

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