Denver's five best spots for ice cream

By Laura Shunk Thu., May 26 2011 at 4:53 PM

2. Sweet Action Ice Cream
While several shops on the Front Range make their own ice cream, none do it as creatively as Sweet Action. The place is inventive with flavors, supplementing the typical chocolate and vanilla variations with treats made from beer, baklava, a honey and chile blend, and Cadbury Creme Egg. Today the dessert-monger is offering up vanilla rose, oatmeal raisin, chocolate toffee and mint chip -- and there's no telling what it'll come up with for tomorrow.

Sweet Cow

1. Sweet Cow
This Louisville-based store is a micro-batch-focused shop that starts with cream, sugar and natural flavorings and creates a lineup of indulgences that are close-your-eyes good: thick and velvety, bursting with gooey swirls and crunchy accoutrements, and so creamy they're practically buttery. We're into the apple pie, the robust Ozo coffee and the sweet corn, but we'll basically eat a scoop of anything that comes from Sweet Cow. That's why it landed our Best Ice Cream award in theBest of Denver 2011.

Honorable mentions go to Bonnie Brae Ice Cream, a Denver institution that features a good convivial vibe; Glacier Ice Cream, which serves up great pints and cones in Boulder; and Spuntino, which doesn't have ice cream, per se, but has kick-ass popsicles.

Have another favorite? Tell us about it below.

More Best of Denver Lists:
- Denver's five best restaurants for blind dates

- Top five martinis in Denver -- good, better, Best!

- Denver's five best burgers

- Denver's six best pizzas

- Denver's five best dive bars

- Denver's five best dinners under $10

- Denver's five best first-date restaurants

- Denver's five best nachos

- Denver's ten best french fries

- Denver's five best green chile fixes

- Denver's five best dishes of mac & cheese

- Denver's five best breakfast sandwiches

- Denver's five best wings

- Denver's five best happy hours

- Denver's ten best draft beer lists

Follow @CafeWestword on Twitter

Tags:

Bonnie Brae, Caffe, Frasca Food & Wine, Glacier Ice Cream, ice cream, Little Man, Pizzeria Locale, Sweet Action, Sweet Cow, TAG

We Recommend

StephenBody

I take a back seat to no one as a lover of fine ice cream. I've actually kept a notebook for almost 35 years (the longest I've ever held onto ANYTHING) that lists all the artisan ice cream places I've tried and the list is, as of this morning, 438 names long. I do a blog for the Seattle P-I, in which I was asked to name my best of that lot. Two are here. The third is Liks. If this list doesn't include Liks, it's because they've been around for a while and aren't the trendy "flavor of the month" anymore. I've had four of the five on your list and Liks is head and shoulders better than ANY of them. If trendiness is how you amass these lists, you might want to rethink your methods. "Best" is still BEST, even if it doesn't happen to be where all the scene-makers are hangin'.

Anon

Honestly Laura. Can you blow Frasca any more? Your ridiculous love of all things Frasca is over the top.

no kidding.

Not to mention ridiculous love for all things TAG...

Markwilliams

Let's not forget all the blow kisses and love letters to Colt and Gray. Laura kisses up to chefs, takes all sorts of free crap, and makes friends with the people she's critiquing. That's a great recipe for credibility!!!!!!!

Monopod

Have you had the gelato at Frasca? It definitely deserves to be on this list (if we're including restaurants that serve ice cream, that is), whatever you may think of the author's general attitude towards the place.

Monopod

No love for Glacier? Or does "Denver's Best" exclude Boulder? (I'm never sure when these things are meant to be regional, and when they're city-specific.)

Joey B

You know Frasca is in Boulder right? ;)

Monopod

Hah, yes, I forgot about Frasca when I wrote that. Likely because, like you, I don't think of Frasca as a "spot for ice cream."

So I guess the list does include Boulder, which means that it should've included Glacier. Best ice cream and gelato around.

Jennifoodie

I had ice cream at Liks a couple times. They are just aight. On the flip side, I feel that Sweet Action has tapped into my brain while I'm sleeping (or awake...sometimes it's hard to tell the difference..lol) and created ice creams and sorbets that I would make at home if I had extra time and motivation. Fresh grapefruit-ginger sorbet, garam masala, sour cream, saffron-almond-currant ice creams, and my personal fave: vanilla rose. Who pairs rich vanilla with floral rose petals into an icy, creamy treat good enough to tempt the palate of a person on their deathbed? Sweet Action, that's who.

Joey B

Putting TAG and Frasca on the same list of anything as Little Man and Sweet Action is absurd. Somebody asks you, 'Where a great spot for Ice Cream' and the answer can't possibly be "Frasca" or "TAG." That's the answer to the question "What restaurants have great ice cream?" Which would be an interesting list by the way. Agree that leaving Liks off this list (especially one that includes Bonnie Brae) destroys all credibility.

Angelina

And TAG doesn't make any of it's own ice cream, they order it from ice cream alchemy. Peter, the owner, makes great stuff that's served in lots of restaurants and shops around Denver and Boulder. He should get the credit, not TAG.

Jason

re: LiksJust because a place is a "Denver institution" doesn't make it the "best of" anything. Look no further than Casa Bonita.

lol

hahahaha! touche

Jenni

I'm also shocked at the slight to Liks, also a denver institution and one of the only places I'll get ice cream in denver period. Shame on you for leaving them off the list.