Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1919 Monticello Ave. (
&
757/627-
4163;
www.doumars.com).
(
Norfolk International Airport (5
2
⁄
3
miles/
9km).
L
$$$
Page House Inn,
323 Fairfax
front sidewalk so kids can watch it in
action. The ice cream shoveled into those
cones is a particularly creamy soft-serve,
in just four flavors—chocolate, vanilla,
strawberry, and pecan—and as different
from your standard Dairy Queen as it
could be. (It also makes a fantastically
thick milkshake.)
Ave. (
&
800/599-7659
or 757/625-5033;
www.pagehouseinn.com). $$
Tazewell
Hotel & Suites,
245 Granby St. (
&
757/
623-6200;
www.thetazewell.com).
Ice Creameries
499
Beantown's Creamiest
The Inside Scoop
Boston, Massachusetts
Who knows why Boston is such a great
place for ice cream? It's not in a dairy
state, or even in a hot climate, and yet
Bostonians are blessed with an extraordi-
nary number of world-class ice creamer-
ies, places that dish out full-fat gourmet
ice cream with loads of mix-ins and exotic
gourmet flavors.
Let's start our tour where it all began:
Herrell's
(15 Dunster St., Harvard Square;
&
617/497-2179
), run by Steve Herrell, who
in 1973 invented the idea of mixing crushed
cookies and candy into the superpremium
ice cream at his original Somerville store,
Steve's Ice Cream (since sold). Quality ingre-
dients and small-batch production keep Her-
rell's at the top of ice-cream lovers' global
lists. Next came
Emack & Bolio's
(290 New-
bury St.,
&
617/536-7127;
255 State St.,
&
617/367-0220; 140 Brookline Ave.,
&
617/
262-1569; 23 White St., Cambridge,
&
617/
492-1907; www.emackandbolios.com),
founded in 1975 by a pair of pro bono law-
yers who named their shop after two home-
less men who were among their clients.
Trading on their countercultural hipness,
E&B wooed a late-night rock-'n'-roll cus-
tomer base with inventive flavors like the
original Oreo Cookie ice cream; it still has
that hippieish vibe, with way-out flavors like
Cosmic Crunch, Deep Purple Cow, and Trip-
pin' on Espresso.
In 1981, along came sleek
Toscanini's
in Cambridge's Central Square (899 Main
St.;
&
617/491-5877
), an ice-cream-and-
coffee cafe conveniently close to both the
Harvard and MIT campuses; it's known for
soft, creamy upscale ice cream in elegant
flavors like burnt caramel and black pep-
per bourbon. Weekend brunches at Tosca-
nini's are justly famous. Founded the same
year out in the Jamaica Plain suburb,
JP
Licks Ice Cream Café
has more of a
whole-earth image, emphasizing ice cream
made from scratch and fair trade organic
coffees. Besides the original cafe (659
Centre St., Jamaica Plain;
&
617/524-
6740
), it has expanded to Boston (352
Newbury St.,
&
617/236-1666; and 1618
Tremont St.,
&
617/566-6676), Cambridge
(1312 Massachusetts Ave.;
&
617/492-
1001), and other suburbs.
It only stands to reason that a city with
so many college students would be a great
market for ice-cream shops, which is why
so many are in student-thronged Cam-
bridge. Besides the ones listed above, the
luscious ice creams and crisp sorbets at
Christina's
(1255 Cambridge St., Inman
Sq.;
&
617/492-7021
) push the envelope
with exotic flavors such as lemon grass,
cardamom, or chocolate Chinese five
spices. Another up-and-coming entrant is
