Ice Cream for Every Month

JANUARY

Deja Moo, Ōamaru

Let’s gloss over the wacky yet wonderful flavours such as multicoloured unicorn ice cream and get straight to the point: Deja Moo makes ice lollies for dogs. With pooch-preferred creations like seaweed and green-lipped mussel, they’re soy-based and healthy. So good, in fact, owner Shaun Osbourne regularly finds a local lolly-loving dog waiting patiently at his door.

Crème de la ice crème:

Hoomans can lock lips with sweeter flavours such as Pineapple Lumps.

Ice cream © Louis Hansel

FEBRUARY

Patti’s & Cream, Dunedin

Betty is a 1984 Bedford truck, food wagon and the fourwheeled brainchild of Olive Tabor, an ice cream-lover turned creator. Based in Dunedin, Olive specialises in hand-made boutique flavours such as candied pear and blue cheese, as well as ‘London Fog’, an Earl Grey and vanilla hybrid. Track down the truck or head to the new scoop shop on Eglinton Road.

Crème de la ice crème:

One online reviewer described Olive’s mint choc chip as ‘life changing’.

Patti’s & Cream, Dunedin © Hayden Parsons

MARCH

Rush Munro, Hastings

A Hastings icon, Frederick Rush Munro dished out his first ice cream in 1926 and opened the Heretaunga Gardens in 1931. His prized roses and ponds can still be enjoyed at Rush Munro’s IceCream Gardens. It’s an absolute must to come here when visiting Hastings, with the queue frequently spilling out onto the street.

Crème de la ice crème:

Traditional ice cream sundaes made and presented the oldfashioned way.

Eating ice cream © Auckland Unlimited

APRIL

The Gelato Lab, Christchurch

Science and sorbet fuse together like frenzied atoms at Gelato Lab. Run by Martina, Italian by birth and Pippa, who studied in Italy, these two whizz kids use a spatula rather than a scoop (an Italian method). Pippa is a research scientist by day and her fondness for a test tube prevails; the menu is designed like a periodic table.

Crème de la ice crème:

Miniature cones that are perfect for kids with eyes bigger than their bellies. I.E. All of them!

MAY

Poppy’s Café, Kaikōura

This is the quintessential Kiwi café with an ice cream counter. There’s something seriously delightful in simple pleasures such as these and we do them so well in Aotearoa. Poppy’s ice cream is churned entirely on site using a traditional method, so the flavours are just as rich as decades prior.

Crème de la ice crème:

Trust those who descend on Poppy’s every weekend – the locals! They say the hokey-pokey is sensational.

JUNE

Pokeno Ice Cream and Coffee Shop, Pokeno

If you like your ice cream large, Pokeno won’t disappoint. In fact, small isn’t even in the vocabulary. As your quintessential Tip Top hangout, this curbside store serves a 12-scoop cone for an unbelievable $14. If you must go ‘small’, there is a positively minuscule seven scoop option.

Crème de la ice crème:

12 scoops! ‘Nuff said.

JULY

LUX Light Festival, Wellington © Positively Wellington

Gelissimo, Wellington

Come winter, Wellington hosts the LUX Light Festival, a free public event that casts the capital in surreal light sculptures. And how does a local ice cream parlour respond to such a spectacle? Why, create glow-in-the-dark ice cream of course.

Crème de la ice crème:

Damson Plum, made with Hawke’s Bay plums gets our vote.

AUGUST

Giapo, Auckland

If you haven’t heard about Giapo’s world-famous ‘squid’ ice cream, you must’ve been hiding under that proverbial rock again. This is a year-round ice cream experience with seasonal concoctions like Halloween Pumpkin Pecan Pie and a winter inspired steamed pudding ice cream.

Crème de la ice crème:

‘The Selfie Cone’, complete with edible picture frame.

Selfie cone, Giapo, Auckland © Davide Zerilli

SEPTEMBER

Luna’s Gelateria, Taupō

Cool lakeside vibes are maximised at Luna’s Gelateria. Taupō’s tastiest little secret boasts fruit sorbetto made with water for those needing dairy free or vegan options, as well as traditional milkbased gelato spilling from a series of colourful tubs.

Crème de la ice crème:

Make like a true Kiwi and tuck into feijoa sorbetto.

Luna’s Gelateria, Taupō © David Jones

OCTOBER

Duck Island, Hamilton

One of New Zealand’s original innovators of daring flavours, Duck Island has taken up residence in Auckland, Wellington and Hamilton, but the latter is its birthplace. We all love vanilla but long gone are the days where banana choc chip was considered revolutionary. Duck Island dabble in Matcha strawberry milk crumb and white chocolate with miso, amongst other beautifully batty combos.

Crème de la ice crème:

For all the fairy bread aficionados out there, here it exists in ice cream form.

Chocolate & berry ice creams © Duck Island

NOVEMBER

Black Peak, Wānaka

Come summertime, central Otago stone fruit is in a class of its own. At Black Peak in Wānaka, the freshly made ice cream is whipped up with orchard delicacies such as cherries, peaches and plums. It doesn’t stop at fruit either; other heavenly tastes include Kiwi jelly tip, whisky and pavlova.

Crème de la ice crème:

Generous scoops of goodie gum drops never disappoints.

© Keriliwi

DECEMBER

Strawberry fields, Kumeū

Heading back from Muriwai or Bethells Beach on Auckland’s western shores? Find refreshment in Kumeū, home to ample PYO strawberry fields. Prime strawberry season falls between December and January, when home-made ice cream stalls pop up with contagious frequency.

Crème de la ice crème:

Phil Greig Strawberry Gardens has a humongous real fruit ice cream called ‘the Mega’.

Strawberries © Getty Images