The best ice cream in Berlin – from patisserie to corner pub

Ice cream in Berlin used to mean one scoop of vanilla, one scoop of chocolate, done. The city has moved on. These days the people behind the counters come from patisserie kitchens, source their pistachios from Sicily and their vanilla from Tahiti, and build flavours you'd sooner expect in Tokyo than from an ice cream van.

These are the places where the summer queue is actually worth it – across the city, from ice cream patisserie to a corner pub serving soft serve.

Jones Ice Cream – the workshop with the waffle

Jones Ice Cream in the Akazienkiez bakes its own waffles and cookies and lets sweet meet salty: Fudge Choco Caramel Peanuts, Earl Grey Shortbread Lemon Curd, Salted Butter Caramel. Everything egg-free on a fresh milk and cream base, plus three vegan fruit sorbets. The branch on Eberswalder Straße is the take-away version – two minutes from Mauerpark.

The move in Schöneberg: the ice-cream-cookie combo, a warm triple choc with salted butter caramel. And a cup costs no less than a waffle – the portion stays the same.

Hokey Pokey – ice cream as patisserie

Hokey Pokey sees itself as an ice cream patisserie, not an ice cream parlour – French and Italian craft, fine-dining aromatics, Sicilian pistachios, Tahitian vanilla. The signature flavour carries the shop's name: butter caramel with puffed popcorn. Around it, poppy-seed marzipan and a Madagascar chocolate with goat's milk and sea salt that tips into sour-salty territory.

It has grown into a small family: the original on Stargarder Straße, plus Oderberger, Pankow (with its own production kitchen) and Torstraße in Mitte – the latter keeps the counter open late. The move for after dinner.

amatō – matcha, yuzu, miso caramel

amatō in the Helmholtzkiez is an Asian-inspired café whose ice cream counter pulls registers you rarely find in Berlin: matcha meets yuzu, miso caramel sits next to hojicha, lychee jasmine tea forms the summer line. Alongside it, a small Japanese-style patisserie selection finished almost too precisely to bite into.

The flavours rotate regularly – the second visit is almost better than the first.

Tribeca – vegan, no asterisk

Tribeca Ice Cream on Rykestraße makes vegan ice cream without soy or refined sugar – handmade, with rotating flavours from Yuzu Cheesecake to Tonka White Chocolate and Nougat Salted Brownie. Tasting before buying is explicitly encouraged.

The pick: the vegan spaghetti ice cream, which stands as its own portion on the menu. There's a second branch in Friedrichshain.

Vanille & Marille – the Steglitz classic

Vanille & Marille runs its own flavour programme in Steglitz: Cherry Cheesecake and Apricot Cheesecake are the classics, the mojito sorbet holds its place as the summer pick. The vegan options go beyond basic sorbets.

Don't overthink Cherry Cheesecake and the mojito sorbet – they're the most requested flavours of the house.

Spumante – the Kreuzberg curiosity

Spumante on Reichenberger Straße is a Berlin category of its own: Italian name, German corner pub, ice cream parlour menu. Soft serve next to lard bread, sparkling wine and Aperol from the tap, wood and Resopal inside, kerbside tables out front.

The correct order: a lemon soft serve and a lard bread with caraway – the two ends of the menu, united in one order.

Bottom line

Berlin's ice cream scene has outgrown the ice cream van. Patisserie technique, Asian flavours, vegan workshops – and in the middle of it all, a corner pub with soft serve that ignores every category. The vanilla-chocolate routine is history.