The city’s ice cream artisans are creating wild flavours far from vanilla. Our resident chef Grant van Gameren enlists chefs Brad Moore and Ian Kapitan of hot new eatery Old School to taste T.O.’s wackiest flavours.

WINNER:
Beer and brown bread 
Bang Bang Ice Cream, 93 Ossington Ave., $5.35
“The beer one nailed it really well. It’s absolutely what I expected,” says Moore. “This is one of the more original ones,” adds van Gameren.

Kitchen sink
Chocolateria, 361 Roncesvalles Ave., $3.80
“It’s good, but I can’t differentiate more than a few flavours, chocolate, mint and a hint of crispy crunch,” says van Gameren. Moore says it tastes like peppermint patties.

White chocolate macadamia nut 
Soma, 32 Tank House Ln., $4.55
“I don’t get a lot of macadamia flavour jumping out at me,” says Moore, and Kapitan agrees. Van Gameren says the cookie flavour is not what he expected.

Toronto pothole  
Summer’s, 101 Yorkville Ave., $4.95
“It’s very chocolate and very typical,” says Moore of the rocky road-style ice cream. Kapitan adds, “It’d be better if there were chunks of marshmallows in it.” And van Gameren agrees that it’s missing something.

Blood orange chocolate swirl 
Sweet Olenka’s, 1050 Queen St. W., $4.50
“Great texture, but I don’t get a strong blood orange flavour,” says Moore. “I get the orange taste afterwards, but the chocolate and orange don’t jump out at me.”

Blue cheese 
Delight, 3040 Dundas St. W., $4.25
“The blue cheese comes through, but initially the flavour is a bit vanilla,” says Moore. “If you’re going to do blue cheese, it should be more bold. I’d like some chunks of blue cheese in there,” says van Gameren.

Soursop
Ali’s Roti, 1446 Queen St. W., $1.65
“I’m getting more cream and vanilla with a subtle soursop flavour,” says Kapitan. “It’s clean, light, straightforward and simple,” says Moore, while van Gameren adds, “It’s a nice palate cleanser, nice and refreshing.”

Toronto traffic jam 
Dutch Dreams, 36 Vaughan Rd., $3
“This one is the truest in terms of tasting like the ingredients. This one wins it for me,” says Kapitan of the salted caramel ripple with chocolate-covered pretzels. Van Gameren likes the addition of pretzels.

Caramel milk tea 
The Sweet Escape Patisserie, 24 Tank House Ln., $3
“It’s very astringent on the back end,” says Kapitan, and Moore agrees that a bitter flavour of tea is present. “I got the caramel, but it had a bitter taste too,” he says.