Sweet Escapes
Written by: Ashley Heaton
The Sweets Truck
The Sweets Truck is not just a mobile bakeshop that travels Los Angeles in a chocolate-hued, custom-designed truck; it’s an ecologically sound, community-building phenomenon. Founder Molly Taylor, who dreamt up her business while working in a more traditional bakery, crafts her desserts with organic milk and sugar and houses them in eco-friendly packaging. A portion of the truck’s profits are donated to charity, allowing Taylor’s company to “stay true to [its] business philosophy: to give back to [the] community and create community wherever [the truck goes].”
Taylor names the Sweets Truck’s signature affogato, a white chocolate chip ice cream with a double shot of expresso and whipped cream, as her current favorite item, but the truck also sells rotating chef specials including whoopie pies from Baking Whoopie and Babycakes NYC cookie sandwiches. Coffee, tea, milk, vanilla crème and hot chocolate are also served, creating a true on-the-go coffee house experience.
thesweetstruck.com
Sweet Rose Creamer
Rustic Canyon Wine Bar and Huckleberry Bakery Café owners Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan grew up visiting the Brentwood Country Mart, so when news broke of a vacancy at the shopping center, they jumped at the chance to open shop. With the help of chef Shiho Yoshikawa, formerly of Tartine, the pair launched Sweet Rose Creamery, an ice cream parlor modeled after those of the early 1900s.
Old-fashioned in look, feel and philosophy, Sweet Rose serves homemade ice cream concocted in small batches from organic milk, eggs, sugar and cream. All ice cream, cones and toppings are made from scratch daily to ensure freshness. The flavors are just as original as the concept, ranging from Fresh Ginger to Apricot Crème Fraiche to Blood Orange Sorbet. If visitors want something a little more adventurous, they can also opt for rich ice cream pies, bon bons or fudge pops.
225 26th Street, Ste. 51, Santa Monica
Shaky Alibi
Enamored with the “social” coffee shops he often visited in his grandmother’s native Germany, Shaky Alibi owner R.J. Milano aimed to bring “all the noise, people interacting and wonderful smells” of those European haunts to his own West LA business, which opened in summer 2010. A wafflerie and coffee shop that serves traditional Belgian Liege waffles at all hours and for all occasions, Shaky Alibi blurs the lines between meal and treat. The waffles, which Milano stresses are “made from dough, not batter,” are accented with fruit, chocolate, jam or the Nutella-like, buttery Speculoos spread. The most indulgent item on the menu is arguably the Spanish chocolate shot, topped with whipped cream or marshmallows. Milano’s favorite concoction, however, is the waffle sundae. “We take our traditional waffle and bring it to life as a sundae or ice cream sandwich, served with a small batch of Organic Vanilla Bean or Sea Salt Caramel ice cream. In a word, delicious.”
7401 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles
Bulgarini Gelato
Rome native Leo Bulgarini learned to make gelato as a child in his uncle’s restaurant in Italy, but it was not until after attending culinary school in the U.S. and Paris that he decided to return to his roots. Bulgarini traveled to his native land to further study the art of gelato making, developing his own methods for ensuring freshness and taste along the way.
Today, his gelato shop uses only the highest-quality ingredients (pistachios come directly from Sicily, while macadamia nuts are brought straight from Hawaii) to ensure authenticity of taste. No articifial colors are used, and the decadent desserts have the light, fluffy texture true to the genuine Italian product. And, while his gelato certainly speaks for itself, Bulgarini recently started offering wine pairings for each seasonal gelato flavor. While his current shop lies tucked away in the hills of Altadena, the Venice location set to open in early 2011 is likely to bring this well-kept secret plenty of new fans.
749 E. Altadena Drive, Altadena; Venice location coming soon
Soda Jerks
What could be more delightfully nostalgic than an old-fashioned soda shop with a beachside carousel backdrop? Pasadena native Kevin McCafferty signed on in 2007 to open a soda fountain on the Santa Monica pier, and three years, later the whimsical project has finally come to fruition. An homage to the 1920s and 30s, Soda Jerks provides an extensive menu of sundaes, shakes, malts and ice cream sodas — with no other food in sight.
200 Santa Monica Pier, Santa Monica
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