Morgenstern’s is the best hard serve ice cream I’ve had in NYC. Though I’m by far a soft serve person over hard serve, soft serve is not easy to come by, so in a pinch, hard serve will do. Morgenstern’s is the best of the lot.
They have both super creative flavors ranging from durian to sunflower seed and the classics like Madagascar vanilla and smooth strawberry. If you go for one of the crazier flavors, you may not like it, but that doesn’t negate the fact that the ice cream itself is phenomenal quality. The ingredients are top notch and the ice cream itself is the perfect balance of rich, creamy, and light.
I personally fell in love with the raw milk ice cream. As someone who only (and I mean only) eats chocolate ice cream, I can’t even fathom the idea of a vanilla. Vanilla is not plain ice cream – it is vanilla. All my life, I wondered why they couldn’t just make a plain, unflavored ice cream. As in, just milk and cream. And this place has it. The raw milk ice cream is literally that. It tastes just like ice cream base before any flavor is added. It’s delicious and simple, but ingenious.
I got that with the cocoa nib ice cream, which is a chocolate ice cream base with cocoa nibs added. The cocoa nibs give it a fantastic texture and cut any sweetness the ice cream itself has, so it’s fairly unsweet overall.
We also had the Vietnamese coffee, which is coffee ice cream with condensed milk, and the pistachio pesto strawberry, which is a strawberry base with the pistachio pesto added on top. Both are delicious, but of the two, the pistachio pesto strawberry won out.
The servings are admittedly small and it is expense for what you get, but it is just so good.
They also have crazier concoctions like really creative sundaes filled with cookies, cakes, pies, and even avocado ice cream toast, which is avocado ice cream on Japanese white bread with olive oil, condensed milk, and salt. The girl next to me ordered that and seemed to love it.
And the staff are beyond nice and very patient with questions and samples.
If you’re in the mood for something creative, definitely check out Morgenstern’s. I will go back over and over again!
