MIAMI ICE CREAM

from 2019 June Oak Cliff

MINDFULNESS IN THE ’HOOD

AZUCAR BRINGS THE FLAVORS OF CUBA, PLUS MEXICAN SPICE AND VEGAN ICE CREAM

THE STREETS OF BISHOP ARTS are flowing with ice cream.

Fort Worth ice cream shop Melt recently opened an outpost on Bishop, where there’s also locally owned Yaya Best Tex Mex Yogurt. Not to mention ice cream floats at Espumoso Caffe and paletas at Picolé Pops and Encanto Pops. Besides that, the two chocolate shops — Dude Sweet Chocolate and CocoAndré Chocolatier — sometimes make their own ice cream.

But there’s only one Azucar.

Former banker Suzy Batlle opened the first Azucar Ice Cream shop in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood in 2011, inspired by her

Azucar Ice Cream Co. 269 N. Bishop Ave. Hours: noon-9 p.m.

Monday-Wednesday, noon-10 p.m.

Thursday and Sunday, noon-11 p.m.

Friday and Saturday azucaricecream.com

Cuban grandmother who loved to make ice cream with tropical fruits.

Their signature flavor is called abuela Maria, named after her grandmother and made with vanilla ice cream, cream cheese, guava and Maria cookies.

Batlle is from Miami, and her mother lived there for 60 years. But once Batlle’s children went off to college three years ago, her mother up and moved to Dallas, where Batlle’s brother is a neurosurgeon.

“Nobody ever imagined she would do that,” Batlle says. “She’s 89.”

So Batlle rented an apartment here, and she found the Bishop Arts District, which she says reminds her of the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami.

The menu is pretty much the same except that Azucar Bishop Arts always offers at least one flavor of vegan ice cream, which is made with pea milk.

“I’m not sure if it’s because I’m next to Tribal [All Day Café],” she says. “But people kept asking me for it.”

The Dallas store also offers Mexicoinspired flavors such as Mexican vanilla and the “ay, Chihuahua,” which has chile powder.