iCream

Continuing the trend of indulgent restaurants that allow you to "have it your way," iCream brings an experiment in free will and independent choice to your ice cream selection. A recent addition to Wicker Park, iCream turns the traditional ice cream shop model of a dozen static flavors on its head by giving you the option to engineer your own frozen concoction.

And I do mean engineer. With a sleek, soft white interior and staff members in white coats, ordering at iCream takes on the air of a grand scientific endeavor. Your first step is to choose a base of regular, light or soy ice cream, or frozen yogurt or sorbet. Then, pick one of the 30 or so flavors; there's a wide variety of choices, including burnt sugar, cinnamon and pomegranate. For an additional 50 cents, you can opt to add mix-ins like heath bar, granola or nutella. My final choices were regular hazelnut ice cream with cookie dough. But wait, we're not done yet, because you can color your creation any number of vivid hues! As I hesitated, the woman behind the counter encouraged me to add a fun color to my ice cream. I went for green.

The contents of my beaker were carefully measured and poured into a mixing bowl. With the flick of a switch, liquid nitrogen was poured into the bowl, clouds of nitrogen billowed away, and my ice cream was almost instantly frozen. If you are unfamiliar with the properties of liquid nitrogen, this is a perfectly safe process, and the liquid nitrogen boils off harmlessly as it freezes the ice cream.

Now for the critical test: what does iCream taste like? My hazelnut ice cream was nutty but faint, and a friend's green tea ice cream was similarly muted in flavor. The green coloring added an additional psychological hurdle because I kept expecting my ice cream to taste like mint or pistachio. Overall, iCream doesn't have the richness or depth of traditional ice cream, but it is a pleasant and refreshing treat on a warm spring day. The most striking thing about this ice cream was its texture, a smooth, airy consistency reminiscent of gelato. This was certainly an improvement over the time I tried to make liquid nitrogen ice cream at home, and ended up with inconsistent icy chunks mixed with liquid.

Perhaps iCream isn't destined to become a regular stop of mine, but the novelty of creating your own liquid nitrogen ice cream is worth seeing at least once. With that, I predict a bevy of curious onlookers and out-of-town visitors will keep packing iCream through the coming summer months.

iCream
1537 N. Milwaukee
(773) 342-2834

Comments

[Michele]

Oh yes, icream is the best! I bought chocolate with cookie dough mixin. mmm