The Brief

The perfect beach weather in L.A. makes most days ideal for sampling the large number of homegrown artisanal ice cream options competing for customers' taste buds.

But ice cream flavors and traditions from around the world are also making a name for themselves, vying to become the go-to treat for Angelenos.

Here are three places on our global list, which feature Turkish, Mexican and Argentine ice cream. We highly recommend you try them out.

Freddo (Argentine)

Freddo's key lime flavor with heart-shaped chips served in a waffle bowl.

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Courtesy Freddo

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Having grown up between Buenos Aires and Los Angeles, I’ve always had a genuine love for the classic dulce de leche flavors found in Argentine heladerías. So when I saw an Instagram post from the Argentine Consulate last year announcing that Freddo was set to open in L.A., I was immediately swept up in nostalgia.

With more than 175 stores in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, the U.S. and Uruguay, Freddo is one of the great success stories of my home country. They’re an ice cream brand founded in the neighborhood of Recoleta in Buenos Aires in 1969. They’ve become known for their classic Argentine flavors like dulce de leche or caramel (but even better!) and zabaglione.

Freddo's dulce de leche ice cream with Oreo.

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Courtesy Freddo

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The Italian influence — natural to Argentines due to Italian immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries — is clearly reflected in the ice cream. The flavors are rich, with creamy textures that enhance the natural taste of chocolate, fruits and nuts.

Freddo opened in Studio City in September, followed this year by a second location in Koreatown in June and a third downtown in late July. All of the locations are well lit, colorful and relaxing spots. They even have board games for families to enjoy.

“We chose to open a gelato store in Los Angeles because we wanted to share the rich, artisanal tradition of Argentinian gelato. L.A.’s warm climate and vibrant culinary scene make it a perfect place,” said Natalia Primo, assistant manager of all Freddo locations.

Aside from dulce de leche and zabaglione, Freddo has more than 25 flavors, including extra creamy strawberry, banana split, pistachio and dark chocolate.

All of their ice cream is imported from Argentina.

“It carries fresh milk, real fruits and ingredients like Argentinian dulce de leche to create smooth, dense gelato with less air than traditional ice cream,” Primo said.

Freddo's opened in Studio City in September 2024.

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Courtesy Freddo

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My personal favorite flavor is stracciatella. It’s rich and creamy, not too sweet, and always carries just the right amount of chocolate chips. That said, it's not the most popular option.

“Dulce de leche is what everyone asks us for, and we have different variations of it, like dulce de leche with chocolate chunks and dulce de leche with Oreo,” said Miguel Eduardo Xolalpa, an ice cream server at the Koreatown location.

If you’re not in the mood for a scoop or two, Freddo also doubles as a coffee shop, offering Italian-style coffee, fruit sodas, dulce de leche-filled ice cream sandwiches to go, alfajores (dulce de leche-filled cookies) and medialunas (sweet croissants).

Galata Ice Cream and Desserts (Turkish)

Galata's ice cream, coffee and pastry options include Turkish baklava.

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Courtesy Galata

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For a completely different ice cream experience, head to Galata Ice Cream and Desserts in Long Beach. The Turkish ice cream shop, which is named after a neighborhood in Istanbul, opened last year in Belmont Shore.

When you walk into Galata, you’ll likely see one of the servers put on a playful show while serving the ice cream, in keeping with Turkish tradition. Using a long-handled scoop, they twirl the cone or cup around the customer — over their heads, around their sides — teasing them to grab it, only to pull it away at the last second — all before finally offering it to the customer.

The location has a pastel pink exterior that can’t be missed. It joins a small cluster of Turkish-owned businesses on Second Street, including Galata Turkish Halal Grill just two doors down and Istanbul Home, a Turkish lamp store next door.

Known as dondurma, the ice cream Galata offers originates from the city of Maras in Turkey. What sets it apart is its use of salep, a flour made from the root of wild orchids, native to parts of the Mediterranean. It’s an ingredient that gives the dondurma its signature stretchy, chewy texture.

Galata's Long Beach shop opened in May 2024.

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Marina Peña

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For LAist

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“It’s not melting like other ice cream. It lasts longer,” said Hakan Yalpi, the manager of Galata.

The shop offers the traditional mastic gum flavor, which is made from resin found in a plant on the Greek island of Chios. It’s an earthy, slightly bitter, pine-like flavor, with subtle hints of citrus and herbs.

“Turkish people mostly come to try the mastic gum, and they’re reminded of their childhoods,” Yalpi said.

But Galata has 25 other flavors as well, including pistachio, kiwi, peach and banana, which are all dairy based, rich and creamy blends.

The ice cream shop also offers coffee, Dubai chocolates and baklava. They’re set to open their second store in San Diego soon.

Mateo’s Ice Cream & Fruit Bars (Mexican)

Mateo's dairy options include flavors like guayaba, cactus fruit and smoked milk.

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Courtesy Mateo's

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True to Oaxaca’s rich traditions, Mateo’s Ice Cream & Fruit Bars features leche quemada — smoked milk ice cream — crafted with caramelized sugar, milk, cinnamon and vanilla, blending smoky, ashy flavors with a smooth, creamy vanilla finish.

“Smoke milk is a really popular flavor in Oaxaca," said Elizabeth Mateo-Richmond, co-owner of Mateo’s and daughter of the brand’s late founder Priciliano Mateo.

"You’ll see a lot of street vendors there selling them, but we make ours differently. In Oaxaca, they use garrafas, traditional wooden or metal tubs, to freeze the paletas. The base ingredient however, like the name suggests, is still burnt milk,” she said.

Mateo’s has more than 20 flavors, both dairy and nondairy fruit flavors, including watermelon, pineapple, coconut, guava, pistachio, coffee and chocolate. They’re a family-owned business and first opened in L.A. in 2000 in Mid City. Known for their tropical fruit-based paletas, or popsicles, they were founded by Priciliano Mateo, who moved to Los Angeles from Oaxaca in 1982 and died in 2018.

The late Priciliano Mateo who founded Mateo's in 2000 in Mid-City

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Courtesy Mateo's

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“My father felt that L.A. was missing paletas, and since he used to sell them in Mexico, his initial thought was to bring something that’s different to a city that hadn’t really been introduced to Oaxacan popsicles,” Mateo-Richmond said.

The mom-and-pop shop business now has four locations: Culver City, Pico-Union, Mid-City and West L.A.. Each shop is vibrant, with walls painted in bright green and yellow and decorated with portraits of paletas and fresh fruit. They also offer ice cream carts for catering.

A variety of Mateo's fruit-based paletas

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Courtesy Mateo's

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“The paletas are very rich, and we use fresh produce on a daily basis. A mango popsicle will have chunks of mango or a strawberry paleta, chunks of strawberry. They just have an authentic richness to the fruits rather than concentrated ingredients,” Mateo-Richmond said.

Mateo’s also offers fruit juices, milkshakes, smoothies and a variety of sandwiches.

The Los Angeles City Council’s recently approved budget includes funding to expand a program that diverts police from some mental health crisis calls to 911.

Since launching in 2024, trained clinicians with the city’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response (UMCR) have handled over 20,000 calls ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. About 96% of those calls were resolved without police or a response from the L.A. Fire Department.

The new city budget includes funding to expand those teams from nine police divisions — including Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West L.A., Olympic and West Valley — to a total of 15.

“In a year where many programs continue to fight for service funding from the city, it’s so great that we are able to continue prioritizing this,” Godfrey Plata, deputy director of progressive policy advocacy group the LA Forward Institute, told LAist.

Plata said UMCR’s expansion is one more step toward taking the program citywide, which his group hopes to do by the 2028 Olympics.

The crisis teams are slated to go online within the six additional police divisions by June 2027. It’s not yet clear which police divisions will be selected for expansion.

The move comes after the City Council voted unanimously in February to make the pilot program permanent.

A 2024 LAist investigation found that nearly one-third of LAPD shootings since 2017 involved someone living with a mental illness and/or experiencing a mental health crisis.

How the program works

In 2024, the city partnered with three nonprofit organizations — Exodus Recovery, Alcott Center and Penny Lane Centers — to provide teams of trained clinicians in service areas spread across L.A. The teams are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the Police Department’s Devonshire, Wilshire, Southeast, West L.A., Olympic and West Valley divisions.

Crisis response workers are trained in de-escalation techniques, mental health, substance use, conflict resolution and more, according to a report from the Office of City Administrative Officer. The teams don’t have the authority to order psychiatric holds for people in crisis, but they can work with them to find help locally, and spend more time on follow up than law enforcement can.

In its first year, Los Angeles’s Unarmed Model of Crisis Response sent teams of unarmed clinicians to more than 6,700 calls for service, ranging from mental health crises to wellbeing checks. About 4% were redirected to the LAPD. Average response times have been under 30 minutes.

Examples of these interactions include members of the teams taking food to a woman who was crying and hungry, working with a business owner to engage with someone sleeping in a parking lot and sitting with a family for nearly three hours to help resolve a conflict involving a relative.

Support from LAFD

During an L.A. City budget hearing last month, fire officials expressed support for the Unarmed Model of Crisis Response.

The department said it’s worked with the teams of clinicians to divert calls for service away from fire first responders since September 2025. The department saw 144 calls diverted to UMCR in the month of March alone.

“We’ve found them to be an incredible asset and ally to addressing some of the issues in the field,” LAFD Chief Jaime Moore told council members at the hearing. “The recommendation would be to expand the program, get it into more police divisions which would then get it into more of our battalions and our bureaus."

What’s next 

City officials have expressed support for expanding UMCR citywide by the 2028 Olympics.

With the plan to expand to 15 police divisions by June 2027, UMCR would need to expand into another six divisions to meet that goal.

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

Koreatown is preparing for major 2026 FIFA World Cup watch parties next month, with thousands of fans expected to cheer on South Korea during three of its group stage matches.

As excitement builds around the World Cup, concerns remain about possible federal immigration enforcement during the international event.

The three watch parties are scheduled for June 11 and June 24 at Liberty Park and June 18 at Seoul International Park, which organizers expect to draw thousands of attendees.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass attempted to reassure any concerns about federal raids Tuesday while promoting the watch parties. 

“I want folks to know that the World Cup is going to be peaceful,” Bass said during a press conference at Liberty Park. “With this administration, I can tell you the best that I know at this hour. So with that in mind, I do not believe that ICE will be at any of the watch parties.”

Bass could not give a firm guarantee that immigration enforcement would not take place during the tournament.

At a media roundtable on Thursday, Bass said federal law enforcement would have a visible presence around World Cup events and venues.

“The events will be safe, because these are international events. And so it’s not just going to be LAPD, it’s going to be a lot of other local law enforcement agencies as well as federal support,” she said. “So in some instances, especially near the venues, you will have federal presence, not ICE, probably the National Guard, but they will be here.”

Bass said she feels confident there will not be ICE raids during the World Cup matches in Los Angeles, because President Donald Trump and his administration do not want the games to project chaos on the international stage. 

“I think during these games … the last concern will be security, because you’ll see an overwhelming force of security. We just have to get our people to not be fearful that there will be ICE raids that happen,” she said about the World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics. 

“He doesn’t want the world to see chaos on our streets. He really doesn’t. And that’s why I feel confident that we will not have ICE raids,” she said about Trump. 

Bass added Tuesday that she believes ICE would be present in Inglewood during the World Cup to “look for people who might be on the no-fly list.”

Where to watch the World Cup in Koreatown

Viewing parties for South Korea’s June 11 opener against the Czech Republic and its June 24 match against South Africa will be held at Liberty Park in Koreatown, with programming beginning at 2 p.m. for both events.

The June 18 match against Mexico will take place at Seoul International Park and is expected to draw the largest crowds. Organizers say programming for that event will begin at 10 a.m. and continue throughout the day, with the match livestream beginning at 6 p.m.

Each event will feature large outdoor viewing areas with giant LED screens, live cheering squads and a main stage with K-pop performances, taekwondo demonstrations, traditional Korean performances, ballet and other entertainment throughout the day.

Organizers are also planning mini soccer games, face painting, photo booths and other family-friendly activities. Food trucks and vendors will line the festival grounds, and a separate senior area is being planned so older attendees can participate safely alongside younger fans.

Young-wan Kim, consul general of South Korea in Los Angeles, said the World Cup carries deep emotional significance for many in the community because of memories from South Korea’s historic 2002 World Cup run.

“It’s an opportunity for us to demonstrate our strengths and our unity and our solidarity,” Kim said. “I hope our celebration of unity goes beyond our community, bringing all races, all people with different backgrounds together.”

Viewing party organizers are working with the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles Fire Department, private security teams, medical staff and city officials to prepare for the large crowds, said Duha Hwang with marketing agency and organizer Advue.

He added that organizers already have insurance coverage and safety measures in place for the events.

The watch parties are being organized by the Korean American Federation of Los Angeles, the L.A. Korean Festival Foundation, the Korean American Chamber of Commerce and more groups.

The first 1,000 attendees at each match will receive free “Red Devils” shirts and cheering items. The “Red Devils,” the official supporters group for South Korea’s national soccer team, became a defining image of the 2002 World Cup, when massive crowds dressed in red packed streets across the country to cheer on the team during its historic run to the semifinals — still the furthest an Asian men’s national team has ever advanced in the tournament.

Hwang said organizers hope to recreate some of that atmosphere in Koreatown.

“We believe this event is becoming something much bigger than a traditional Korean community gathering,” Hwang said.

The Los Angeles City Council has officially delayed minimum wage increases for tourism workers. The council made the final vote Tuesday, pushing back a boost to $30 an hour for airport and hotel workers from 2028 to 2030.

The controversial move comes after L.A. faced major pressure from business interests, which had gathered enough signatures to put a measure on the November ballot to repeal the business tax. That effort could have financially ruined the city if it passed.

After the City Council voted to delay the wage from the November ballot, the leaders behind that ballot measure withdrew it.

It's a maneuver hotel workers have called a "shakedown." Originally celebrated as an "Olympic Wage," the $30 minimum was pegged to the arrival of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles. But a battle to upend it started as soon as the City Council passed it last year.

Workers who had counted on the increases aren't happy.

" I would expect my councilmember to stand up for working Angelenos, not help giant companies take money out of our pockets," Jordan Long, a bartender at LAX, said at a recent council meeting.

Stuart Waldman with the Valley Industry & Commerce Association told LAist that business groups decided to advance their ballot measure after unions wouldn't broker a deal with them directly.

"The business community has taken a page out of the union playbook to play hardball," he said.

Council members Eunisses Hernandez, Ysabel Jurado and Hugo Soto-Martinez voted against the motion to finalize the wage delay Tuesday.