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.

A new trail across the beloved natural area of Elephant Hill in Northeast Los Angeles is officially opening this weekend.

The route is years in the making, and it's a big milestone in the decades-long conservation efforts to preserve this local jewel in the community of El Sereno.

The hiking trail connects one side of Elephant Hill to the other — from the corner of Pullman Street and Harriman Avenue all the way across to Lathrop Street.

It's 0.75 miles in total, but packs a punch.

"It's a pretty straight shot, but because of the terrain — the trail is kind of twisty and curvy. There's switchbacks — and great views," Elva Yañez, board president of the nonprofit Save Elephant Hill, said.

People have always been able to access the 110-acre green space, but Yañez said the new trail provides a safe and easy way to navigate the steep hillsides.

The El Sereno nonprofit has been working for two decades to preserve the land. Illegal dumping and off-roading have damaged the open space over the years. And the majority of the 110 acres are privately owned by an estimated 200 individual owners.

Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) joined the efforts in 2018, spurred by a $700,000 grant from Los Angeles County Regional Park and Open Space District, in part, to build the trail. The local agency received some $2 million in grants from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to add to the 10 acres of Elephant Hill it manages and conserves. This year, MCRA acquired an additional 12 parcels — or about 2.4 acres.

And the spiffy new footpath — with trail signage, information kiosks and landscape boulders — is not just a long-sought-for victory but a beginning in a sense.

"We know that it means a lot to the community," Sarah Kevorkian, who oversees the trail project for MRCA, said. "We're wrapping up the trail, but it really feels like the beginning of all that is to come."

A hint of that vision already exists — for hikers traversing the new route, courtesy of Test Plot, the L.A.-based nonprofit that works to revitalize depleted lands.

"They're able to see at the end of the trail, at the 'test plot' — exactly what a restored Elephant Hill would look like," Yañez said.

Here's a preview:

The Venice Boardwalk after sunset has generally been a no-go zone for tourists and locals alike, as the beachside bars and restaurants close on the early side and safety is often an issue. Now, a group of artists is out to bring some vibrancy to the creative neighborhood with a series of new installations that will include live evening performances – and even a “Venice Opera House.”

“Let's play with light and let's play with sound and give people a reason to come to the Boardwalk after sundown,” said artist and entrepreneur Stefan Ashkenazy, who is curating the project and owns the buildings housing them. “I mean, let's just be open 24 hours a day.”

The concept doesn’t have an official name yet, but he’s been calling it “See World.”

Artist James Ostrer's space looks out from a bed through the fence to the ocean at Venice Beach.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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William Attaway, a longtime Venice artist, created a gallery space filled with various paintings and sculptures.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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The pair of modern buildings on the Venice Boardwalk at Thornton Ave. – with their big balconies, floor-to-ceiling glass windows, and seven open garage-style retail spaces – have sat mostly empty since Snapchat vacated their beachside offices in 2019. Ashkenazy recently bought the building and recruited artists to fill those front-facing spaces with creative work until a full-time tenant comes in.

Over the past several weeks the installations have been created in real-time, in public.

All of the projects are loosely along the theme of “home,” with each artist claiming a “room” in the two buildings that stretch across a full block on the Boardwalk. Several local Venice artists are featured, including William Attaway, whose intricate mosaic work is recognizable on the Venice public restrooms along the beach. Attaway’s space features a floating larger-than-life-sized statue and various works in a mini-gallery. In the next room is Robin Murez’s pieces, featuring carved wooden seats from her beloved neighborhood Venice Flying Carousel.

Ashkenazy is no stranger to wild (and wildly successful) art ideas. He’s the owner of the Petit Ermitage hotel in West Hollywood, a longtime haven for visiting artists, and the founder of the decade-old Bombay Beach Biennale, where artists install all kinds of work in an annual event near the Salton Sea. Many of the artists from that community are featured at the Venice project.

A "Venice Opera House" will host pop-up music events throughout the summer.

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Laura Hertfeldz

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny's paintings on the wall of his Venice space.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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New York-based artist Greg Haberny and London-based artist James Ostrer have brought some of their work in the Bombay Beach Biennale to the Venice project. Their windows on the Boardwalk both speak to a child-like sense of wonder and creativity.

“I think it's just kind of exploring and playing a little bit, to have the freedom to be able to do that,” Haberny says of his imagined child’s bedroom space, which includes a fort made out of puffy cheese balls. “It's a big space, too.
It's beautiful.”

Ostrer is experimenting with a performance art idea where he sits in bed amongst a room full of his own artwork, which he describes as “happy art with an edge.” Looking out at the ocean from the bed, he’s invited passersby to sit and have chats with him about his work or anything else they want to talk about.

“It’s a very intimate space, so you have a different kind of conversation,” he said. “I use art to channel human creativity, and [talk about] dark things.”

While there are open fences that block off the spaces, they aren’t sealed up at night. Both Ashkenazy and the team of artists seemed open to the idea that anything could happen and that the installations are a conversation with the public – and with that comes some risk.

Greg Haberny (right) works with his assistants on an installation featuring kid-inspired graffiti art and a "cheesy puff" fort.

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Laura Hertzfeld

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LAist

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“I don't really know if I [would] say worried, but I guess it's just the cost of doing business,” Haberny said. “I don't really make things to get damaged or broken, sure. But I have done [things like] burned all my paintings and then made paint out of ash.”

While he’s felt safe – and even slept overnight in the installation – Ostrer has been collaborating with a local female artist who performs in a pig mask in front of his installation some nights. Watching her perform, he said, has taught him about the vulnerability of women in public spaces like the Boardwalk. “I've started to, on a very fractional level, have seen how scary that is. Because I've sat in the bed behind her performing at the front here… the way in which men are approaching her and shrieking at her … it's shocking.”

Ashkenazy says he will keep the artists in the space, potentially rotating new ones in, until a fulltime tenant takes over.

“This is an experiment … and after acquiring the building, the intention wasn't, ‘let's open a bunch of public art spaces,’ he said. “It is kind of …what the building wanted and listening to what the Boardwalk needed. Let's play, let's have the artists that we love and appreciate have a space to play and engage and give the locals and the visitors to the Boardwalk something to experience.”

A coalition of residents from across the San Gabriel Valley are mobilizing over a battery storage project and possibly more industrial development in the City of Industry they say could pollute communities next door.

A protest is scheduled today in neighboring Rowland Heights, targeting a 400-megawatt battery energy storage facility sited on about 9 acres that was approved by the City of Industry leaders in January.

Such Battery Energy Storage Systems, or BESS, are used to keep the power grid stable, especially as output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind fluctuate. But fires involving lithium batteries at some sites have heightened environmental and public health fears.

Because of the City of Industry’s unusual, sprawling shape stretching along the 60 Freeway, it borders on more than a dozen communities, meaning what happens there can have far-reaching impact.

“Pollution does not end right at the border,” said Andrew Yip, an organizer with No Data Centers SGV Coalition. “Pollution travels.”

Some local activists with the Puente Hills Community Preservation Association have challenged the approval of the battery facility under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Beyond environmental concerns, locals have also been frustrated with how decisions are made by officials in the City of Industry, a municipality that’s almost entirely zoned for industrial use and has less than 300 residents.

Organizers say they’ve struggled to get direct responses from city officials whom they say have replaced regular meetings with special meetings, which under state law require less advance notice.

A city spokesperson has not responded to requests for comment.

The so-called Marici Energy Storage System Facility would be run by Aypa Power. The fact that the battery storage developer is owned by the private equity giant Blackstone, a major investor in AI and data centers, has only fueled concerns that a battery storage facility would lay the groundwork for data center development.

A request for comment from Aypa was not returned.

Today’s protest is taking place at Peter F. Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights across the street from the Puente Hills Mall, a largely vacant “dead” mall, which activists fear could be redeveloped into a data center and bring higher utility costs and greater air and noise pollution.

Yip pointed out that industrial developments make a lot of money for the City of Industry.

“But none of these surrounding communities receive any of those benefits,” Yip said. “Yet we have to put up with all the harmful effects and impacts from this city that does all this development without really reaching out.”

It’s about the size of a park bench and made of steel and wood. The bench’s arm rests are formed by the letters “L” and “A” in a design that’s unmistakable to any sports fan. But the welder-artist who created it says it’s not a Dodgers bench.

“This is about civic pride, L.A. pride. I made a design statement saying that it has nothing affiliated with the Dodgers,” said Steve Campos.

Campos grew up near Dodger Stadium, raised by parents who were die-hard Dodgers fans. So much, that they named him after Steve Garvey but that legacy doesn’t keep him from confronting how the Dodgers benefitted from the mass displacement of working-class people from Chavez Ravine after World War Two. That’s why he calls it an L.A. Bench, and not a Dodgers Bench.

The logo may be synonymous with the city's beloved baseball team, but the design of the interlocking letters was used by the L.A. Angels minor league baseball team before the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958.

“The monogram was here before the Dodgers,” Campos said.

A second-generation welder

Welding is the Campos family business. His father created gates and security bars for windows and doors for L.A. clients. That was the foundation for the work Campos has done for two decades since graduating from Lincoln High School, L.A. Trade Tech College, and enrolling in a summer program at Art Center in Pasadena.

The inspiration for the L.A. Bench came last year while he was playing around in his shop creating versions of the L.A. logo. A friend he hangs with at Echo Park Lake asked Campos to make him a piece of furniture.

“I was trying to figure out what my friend Curly wanted. He liked Dodgers and drinking and getting into fights, so I was like, 'Let me make something with the LA monogram,'” he said.

Welder-artist Steve Campos created whimsical steel sculptures with the LA logo.

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Courtesy Steve Campos

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It didn’t design itself. He said he had to lengthen the legs on the “A” and lean the back of the “L” in order to make the bench functional. In the process, he’s made a piece of furniture with a ubiquitous logo that he’s embedded with his own L.A. pride, as well as city history past and present.

LA civic pride travels to Japan

Campos vacationed in Japan the last week of April and took advantage of the trip to reach out to people who may be interested in the L.A. Bench. He was caught off guard by people’s reaction when he showed them pictures of it.

“They look at it and they go, 'Oh, Ohtani bench,'” he said.

For them, it’s still a bench embedded with pride, he said, but centered around Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, an icon in his native Japan.

Campos has made four L.A. benches and is selling them fully assembled, he said, for $2,500 each — taking into account his labor and how costly the raw materials have become. For now, he’s offering the metal parts as a package for $500, which requires the buyer to purchase the wood for the seat and the back — an easy process, he said.

While he has no plans to mass produce the L.A. Bench, he does have one goal in mind that shows how hard it is for him to separate L.A. civic pride and the Dodgers.

“I would love to get a couple of them installed at Dodger Stadium,” he said.