NYCGuide
The Best Soft Serve In NYC
photo credit: Emily Schindler
We love soft serve from an ice cream truck on a sticky summer day just as much as the next New Yorker. What we don't love is showing up to our ice cream truck’s regular spot only to find it had other plans for today. So until someone creates an app to track down Mister Softee, use this list. It’s got soft serve that comes with Lactaid, ube and black sesame swirls we love, and one spot that's open 24/7, just in case.
THE SPOTS
If you'd like your soft serve with a side of burger and fries, there's no better destination than Mister Dips on Pier 17 in the South Street Seaport. They do specialty cones, so you can order things like the Berry Gibbs with strawberry soft serve and Nilla wafers, or the Buttermint Crunch with thin mint custard and grasshopper cookies. It’s a perfect place for a day when you'd love to be eating ice cream by the water, not sweating through your shirt for the ninth time this week.
Ray’s Candy Store offers soft serve support 24/7. This classic, cash-only spot off Tompkins Square Park has walls covered with newspaper articles and pictures of everything you can order, from ice cream served in a coffee cup to fried Oreos. Ray himself, who's owned the place since the 1970s, will likely be there when you stop by, so make sure to wave hello. We recommend sticking with chocolate, vanilla, or swirl.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
If you’re looking for a little quiet and some showy soft serve in Herald Square, Nana’s Green Tea is the place. Choosing how you want your tea-rich matcha and hojicha soft serve can be as complicated as ordering eggs. Cup? Cone? Floating on a tea latte? But we stick to the matcha parfait, a tall glass that comes with a long spoon and layers of mochi globules, cream, cereal, and red bean paste. The corner cafe is uncharacteristically large for Manhattan, which means you can actually sit down and enjoy your treat. Come with a loved one and let the ambient piano music get you in a peaceful mood rarely felt in Midtown.
There are plenty of vegan options on this list for the lactose-intolerant among us. But if you’re the kind of lactose intolerant person who eats dairy anyway and suffers the consequences, you should know that Soho’s Softside doesn’t just sell light, airy, soft serve—they sell Lactaid, too. Order a pistachio and strawberry swirl, or some vanilla in a cup drizzled with olive oil. Softside is from the team behind Upside Pizza right next door, so you can chase your cone with a pepperoni slice (or vice versa).
Dreamery serves vegan ice cream and other plant-based desserts for “kids of all ages.” We have yet to see any physical children at this pastel-colored Bed-Stuy shop, but you’ll feel like one as you pour yourself soft serve and add a scoop of chocolate chips at the DIY toppings bar. Flavors rotate—check their IG to see what’s available—but we've tried pumpkin pie soft serve on a red velvet waffle cone, and chocolate peanut butter swirl with a dab of salted pineapple.
photo credit: Noah Devereaux
Soft Swerve’s Instagram bio reads “NYC’s Yammiest Soft Serve.” It's not a typo. They’ve been making ube ice cream since 2016, and they now have five locations serving the aforementioned ube, as well as black sesame, and hard ice cream flavors like Vietnamese coffee and Hong Kong milk tea. This place has a bunch of different toppings like mochi and Cap’n Crunch, and their LES location is a great spot for a cone after a dumpling crawl in Chinatown.
You probably know Leo as the sourdough pizza spot in Williamsburg that's great for wine-soaked birthday dinners ending in dreamy soft serve. What you might not know is that their cafe next door sells their soft serve too, in case you don’t have time for a sit down meal. Their flavors rotate, but if you see concord grape and caramel swirl, get it. While you're at it, grab a coffee and a slice to go, too.
photo credit: Kenny Yang
Surreal Creamery isn’t just fun to say, it’s also fun to visit. This ice cream spot off of 2nd Avenue in Murray Hill makes soft serve flavors that feel almost inconceivable. (Except we're grateful that someone conceived them.) There's a cookies and cream flavor the exact shade of Cookie Monster, as well as toppings like Lucky Charms and Teddy Grahams. And you can get your soft serve in a cup full of bubble tea or a sundae in a mason jar. If you’re closer to Greenwich Village, Surreal also has a location there.
photo credit: Anne Cruz
If you're a soft serve purist, some of the ice cream on this list—like a blue sundae called the Cookie Monster—might be overwhelming. That's why you should go to Marvel Frozen Dairy, an old-school soft serve spot in Astoria. They have flavors like chocolate, strawberry-pistachio swirl, and peanut butter frozen yogurt, and you can get your ice cream dipped (they call this giving it a bonnet), or in a sundae.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
If your ears perk up at the mention of anything oat milk-related, pay this LES ice cream shop a visit. While Urban Dessert Lab does serve hard ice cream, we love their specialty oat-based soft serve in flavors like strawberry shortcake and chocolate peanut butter pretzel. They also have something called a Brûléesant (a brûléed croissant). It is in fact trademarked.
photo credit: Bananas
Bananas feels like something you’d see on the Coney Island Boardwalk, except it’s on the LES and makes non-dairy soft serve in flavors like coconut vanilla and sumo yuzu. Get the salted chocolate peanut butter soft serve as well as the banana caramel flavor, which does a convincing impression of bananas foster. The bright yellow spot from the Morgenstern’s team has a loyal following. So if you stop by on a warm weekend afternoon, expect a line.
photo credit: Giulia Verdinelli
Cones are cool and all, but soft serve in a fish-shaped cake is better. This Japanese bakery in Chinatown is pretty famous online, and for good reason. We especially like the black sesame soft serve with red beans, but the matcha and vegan mango are great, too. Taiyaki also has a second location in Williamsburg.
If you’re into brown sugar boba, then you already know about Xing Fu Tang. But if you only get drinks here, you’ll miss out on the best menu item: the brown sugar boba soft serve. It’s so good that we’ve been known to finish one, then turn around and go back for another. Go to the Flushing location so you have an excuse to eat other things in the neighborhood. There’s also a St. Marks spot with the same menu.
photo credit: Hannah Albertine
The flavors at Cafe Panna in Gramercy change daily, so come here when you want to be surprised and excited by way of dairy. There are almost no simple options here: you'll walk away holding a chocolate-covered strawberry sundae, a pineapple linzer sundae, or a speculoos truffle affogato sundae. They also sell pints to go, for when you're overwhelmed and need to try everything.
photo credit: Teddy Wolff
L’Industrie is one of the 25 best restaurants in NYC, and it’s not just the slices that give it this distinction. Their ice cream flavors rotate, but you can expect things like clementine sorbet, cantaloupe pistachio swirls, and bright purple concord grape, all doused in olive oil and topped with flaky salt. Coming here just for pizza would be a mistake. And, after waiting in line in the sun, it might even be a good idea to start with ice cream and end the meal with pizza. Their second location in the West Village also has soft serve.
Malai makes some of our favorite ice cream in the city, hard or soft. The difficult part of eating here is choosing which of their Indian-inspired flavors to order, but since they only have two rotating soft serve flavors at any given time, the decision-making process is easier. We like their soft serve better than their hard ice cream, which is really saying something.
photo credit: Emily Schindler
Orchard Grocer is a vegan deli on the LES that makes some pretty great plant-based ice cream. Pair a chick’n caesar wrap with cookie dough soft serve, or follow your cobb salad sandwich with a strawberry soft serve topped with housemade magic shell. Also, it's only a block away from Soft Swerve’s LES location, in case you’d like to embark on a bit of a soft serve parade.
photo credit: Carina Finn
There are 20 Carvel locations in Brooklyn, but going to the one on Coney Island Avenue feels like an NYC rite of passage. There’s an old-timey facade, a colorful Fudgie the Whale mural, and at least six flavors to choose from at any given time. Pistachio is always available, and you can usually get it as a twist with cold brew. Order this. The line can be long here, especially in the summer, but even hanging in the parking lot waiting to hear your number called is part of the charm.
