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Salt & Straw
240 North Larchmont Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90004
Uber
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Flavors
Flavors
Papi's Korean Fluffernutter
Peanuts see the world, make new friends, report back to HQ. Roy Choi is one of those people that we just idolize, so naturally we used our most appealingly whiny tones to beg him to make an ice cream with us. Roy finally agreed, but instead of making a Korean taco ice cream, Roy wanted to make something with the Korean-Beijingesque boiled, spiced peanuts he used to love as a kid. He wanted to call it "Papi's Salted Nuts," and he still can. But as it started taking shape, it became more like a spiced fluffernutter. A light tan, creamy, peanutty ice cream base double-swirled with playful spiced fruit and jolly aromatic marshmallow. The ice cream is streaked with a delicious blackberry jelly infused with Thai chilies. Then we spoon in folds of marshmallow fluff whipped with Southeast Asian spices. Chunk in a few nuts, and it's pretty much perfect. Roy Choi takes all the angst and egotistical pomposity out of cooking and, instead, focuses his incredibly inventive cooking brain to create dishes percolating with "don't give a (let's substitute 'fig') deliciousness." Roy started his culinary domination out of his Kogi BBQ Taco Truck in Venice, serving a crazy yum fusion of unique Korean ingredients with taco hand-food feeling. His menu is now the national food of Los Angeles.
Molé Rojo Flan
Molé. Ice cream. Holy molé! These Mexican wonder sauces are made with so many ingredients, the flavors meld together into unidentifiable, heavenly elixirs of complicated tastiness. We created this ice cream purely to showcase the incredible flavor of Restaurante Guelaguetza's molé rojo, which is made with over fifty different ingredients. The base of this ice cream is made with ancho chilies, cinnamon, and Mexican vanilla. Then we make an egg flan with Restaurante Guelaguetza's spicy red molé. It's so good! Dense and heavy, that first spoonful delivers a cold, creamy rush of spicy joyand does not stop. When it comes to Oaxacan food in the United States, Restaurante Guelaguetza is the absolute best. It's difficult to explain how good the Family Lopez's food is-a perfect blend of Oaxacan tradition with smart, ambitious, chef-driven creativity. That being said, the true stars at La Guelaguetza are their molés. We heartily recommend you hie thineself over there, or to ilovemole.com and try some of these incredible molés.
Molé Rojo Flan
Spicy? Yes. Meaty? Yes. Tasty as ice cream? Yes yes! Inspired by late summer nights of convivial sausage-grilling, we thought it would only be fair to try to bring the juicy, meaty, caramelized goodness to our other favorite food vehicle that is not a bun. The not-so-secret ingredient in this ice cream is a nutmeg-and-coriander-laced sausage from our friends at Wurstküche. In the ice-cream-making process, these spicy pork sausages are grilled until they caramelize to a squeal-inducing darkness. To top it off, we concoct a honey-mustard caramel sauce to ripple through each scoop. Wurstküche is arguably the busiest restaurant in the country. In addition to being the creator of some of the most incontrovertibly delicious sausages we've ever had, ever.
Green Corn Tamales
Food trend of the future. This ice cream is a deep, adoring, humble bow to the masterful chefery that has been a cornerstone of the LA food scene for over 30 years: Border Grill. Picture a sunny, pale yellow corn tamale ice cream rich with cream, egg yolks, and a slightly acidic, complex sweetness from agave, dotted with "candied" corn kernels. Now picture yourself spooning a bit of this into your mouth. And then picture the happiness you get from the sweet-savory burst of cool, creamy sweet. It's not so hard! Oh, how Border Grill steals our hearts with its beautiful array of fresh, consciously harvested ingredients and authentic Latin flair. Head chefs Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger have been instrumental in shaping LA's food scene (as well as the term "celebrity chef-dom") since 1981. In honor of the care that they give their dishes, we worked with them to re-create one of our favorites on their menu, Green Corn Tamales. It is a serious thrill to work with these inspiring humans.
Peking Duck Buns
Wishing is a form of destiny. We have fantasized about making an ice cream that lives up to the drool-inducing mouth party that a real, on-the-street Peking duck bun inspires. This ice cream is a mysterious, mystical, magical Southeast Asian duck-bun ride. We have ice cream-ified five-spiced plum sauce, adding "crispy duck skin" candy brittle and a satisfying cucumber gummy chew. If the world is looking a little mundane to you this week, a spoonful of this glorious stuff might just dig a new well of possibility in your soul.
Classic L.A. Flavors
Salted, Malted, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
This flavor is packed with a mind-blowing explosion of salty, homemade cookie dough and malted fudge swirls.
Single Origin Amadeus Vanilla
This is made with a Ugandan vanilla bean brought to us by Amadeus Vanilla here in Los Angeles. We love this bean because not only is it organic but Amadeus visits the farms to hand select the beans before bringing back to us.
Chocolate Gooey Brownie
This is chocolate ice cream at it's simplest and most indulgent. We've teamed up with Portland's Holy Kakow Chocolates to make a base that is straight forward and chocolatey. Our house-baked brownies have marshmallow fluff folded in to keep them extra gooey.
Almond Brittle with Salted Ganache
Handmade in-house, this is our Grandma Malek's almond brittle recipe that she'd make on special occasions since we were little. We added our own touch with salted chocolate ganache and mixed delicious chunks into a creamy vanilla ice cream.
Stumptown Coffee & Compartes Love Nuts
Cold-brewed, Stumptown single-origin, Indonesian Sumatra coffee makes for a light and creamy base in this ice cream, which also features one of our favorite chocolatiers in Los Angeles, Compartes. We've worked with Jonathan at Compartes to mix his Love Nuts into this ice cream. The chocolate-dipped, caramel-coated pecans provide the perfect bite for the perfect coffee ice cream.
Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons
We created this ice cream with Mark Bitterman, the owner and "selmelier" at The Meadow, the internationally renowned Portland salt shop. He actually wrote the book on salt, Salted, a James Beard Award winning cookbook. We use their Fleur de Sel, which is made in Guatemala from salt pans that are famed for supplying the Mayan Empire at the height of its power. We've topped it off by ribboning in hand-burned caramel that we make in house!
Avocado & Strawberry Sherbet
Bright avocado sherbet with ribbons of Strawberry Vanilla Bean jam from Laura Ann's Jams.
Black Olive Brittle & Goat Cheese
This ice cream is a fun recipe that was strongly inspired by the exotic ingredients available at local farmers markets. Using oil-cured olives from Olivos del Mar farms, we've created a salty candy brittle. This candy is then mixed into a delicate ice cream base that is made using a really funky goat cheese that is aged for three weeks in vegetable ash from Cypress Grove Creamery in Arcata, CA.
Santa Ynez Valley Walnut Oil
We kept this flavor sweet and simple. Using La Nogalera Walnut Oil, grown and pressed in the Santa Ynez valley, this flavor highlights the flavorful and aromatic profiles of the walnuts. When tasting this ice cream, the walnut flavor is rich and buttery with strong notes of vanilla and caramel. We're excited for this flavor and how it showcases such a special Central Coast delicacy.
Tomato Water and Ojai Olive Oil Sherbet
After visiting farms throughout Southern California and the Central Coast, we were amazed and inspired by the fresh tomatoes and how sweet they are! We wanted to pair these with a really phenomenal olive oil grown in beautiful Ojai Valley (which is known for its Mediterranean-like climate). Ojai Olive Oil Company's olive oil is fresh pressed and has a sharp, grassy flavor that cuts through the tomato's sweetness.
Freckled Woodblock Chocolate
Roasting cocoa beans in a 19th century-old fire roaster, Woodblock is the first bean-to-bar chocolate maker in Portland. We add in a bit of Jacobsen sea salt, the first to harvest salt from the Oregon coast in over 200 years, and then use an old-school ice cream making technique called "freckling" to suspend the chocolate in an untempered state.
Toasted Coconut w/ Candied Macadamia Nuts
A coconut based, non-dairy ice cream that will surely leave you suspicious of its "non-dairyness." To make sure this flavor delivers on yum factor, we fold in candied California-grown macadamia nuts, toasted coconut cookies, and a house-made caramel sauce.