Brothers Nitzan and Itay Rogozinski opened their first branch of the Vaniglia ice cream boutique in 2001 at Basel Square in Tel Aviv. Anything that goes into the ice cream is made on the premises, from cheesecake to poppy seed cake. They use pistachio paste from Sicily, truffle oil from Umbria, orange flower petals from Turkey, camomile flowers from Egypt, tonka beans from Guinea and vanilla from Madagascar; to mention but a few.
Vaniglia offers a nice selection of sorbets with a very high percentage of fruit (over 70%). The dairy ice creams are delicious too, and they are also producing a new line of 100% organic ice creams made with rice milk or soy milk, and a line that is sugar-free.
I visited the new Hod HaSharon branch that is located in a cute little “house” that was built for the ice cream shop. It might look small from the outside, but this branch offers a good selection, such as the following highly recommended flavors:
- Yogurt with orange flower water, Sicilian pistachios and apricot compote
- Yogurt with honey and pine nuts
- Plum sorbet
- Valharona chocolate with an infusion of cocoa beans and chocolate crunch
- Sicilian pistachio
- Coconut
- Mango sorbet
- Blackberry sorbet
- Oh, just try them all!!!
Vaniglia has several locations:
22a Eshtori Hafarchi Street (off Basel Street)
Tel Aviv
98 Ibn Gvirol Street
Tel Aviv
HaTachana
Tel Aviv
18 Derech Ramatayim
Hod HaSharon
Shaked Gelateria (pronounced Sha-Ked) was originally started as a pizzeria in the leafy town of Ramat Gan, just next to Tel Aviv, then turned into a cafe, and eventually branched out into homemade ice creams. Today, Shaked also has a branch in the entertainment zone of the old Tel Aviv Port, which is also a cafe, even though it is better known for its ice cream (something which obviously appeals to the patrons of the toy shop strategically located next door).
Shaked offers some interesting flavors of ice cream, such Kremschnitt, sabra (prickly pear) sorbet, olive oil and za’aatar (hyssop), tehina and humous. They also produced a special for the World Cup, which is no longer available: beer ice cream with sunflower seeds! Unfortunately, they didn’t have some of these flavors on offer when I visited the Tel Aviv Port location, but I do recommend the following:
- Frutti di Bosco (Forest Fruits)
- Chocolate sorbet
- Cheesecake
- Mango
- Limoncello
Shaked Gelateria has two locations:
Hangar 7, Tel Aviv Port
Tel Aviv
40 Aluf David
Ramat Gan
I love the ice cream at Shaked*s