Have you ever started your day with ice cream? It’s not something I tried before, but when I came by Artisan Ice Cream to meet owners Richard and Paula Westcott one morning, they quickly indoctrinated me into their practice. Their son Jack is 1.5 years old and very much an ice cream aficionado already. A vanilla cream soda float can fit into your morning routine more easily than you think.

“When we were looking at the opening hours, I was thinking ‘Do people eat ice cream for breakfast?’ and I thought, ‘well I do,’” says Paula, holding Jack on her hip while she tells me about her artisan shop.

“I have always wanted to open an ice cream shop since I was little. It was that thing I wanted to do when I grew up. Richard and I both loved ice cream. When we met we always wanted to start a business together and we wanted to move to Maui. The lady that was running her business in this spot was leaving, and I wanted to work on a partnership with my parents at Cafe Des Amis, so it all fell into place.”

Artisan Ice Cream opened on May 1 right next door to Cafe Des Amis in Pa‘ia. The shop is cute, just a little slice of space big enough to showcase two cases full of ice cream flavors, and the incredibly tempting smell of waffle cones baking. You can pick up scoops here and eat them in the Cafe Des Amis courtyard next door.

“Before the ice cream shop we lived in London, and I was a CPA and Paula was in public relations,” says Richard. “So we had the business side of things, but we were just not in the ice cream industry. It took a while for the county to sign off on us. We had to change this space from a shop to a food establishment and that took some time.”

“But we ate a lot of ice cream!” says Paula. “We spent two years experimenting with recipes.”

Their experiments resulted in the 12 flavors of artisanal dairy and vegan ice cream made every day in small batches, with a range of traditional and original flavors. The dairy scoops use organic milk and cream, organic cane sugar, and organic egg yolks. The vegan scoops are made using coconut milk, coconut cream, and organic cane sugar. They also make fresh waffle cones and offer shakes, sundaes, and homemade sodas.

“The vegan flavors are based on a long recipe that we designed ourselves. It starts with coconut milk and coconut cream and organic cane sugar, and then the flavors,” says Rich. “We make it in the same machine as the dairy ice cream. The most popular vegan flavor is mana cookies and cream. In our vegan flavors the coconut milk and coconut cream are not organic, but the sugar is. For vegans, the sugar was the more critical ingredient to be organic. White sugar can sometimes be bleached with bone char. ”

“We are working on a paleo option, a sugar free version, and a mango sorbet,” says Paula. “We have a lot of mango in our yard right now. We feature eight dairy flavors and four vegan flavors in the shop for now. It’s finding that balance between keeping the favorites and being able to mix it up for a bit too.”

Artisan Ice Cream is open from 9:30am to 9pm every day. Their artisanal ice cream is a magnificent treat. When you eat ice cream that fresh it puts premade supermarket counterparts to shame. Come by to see what flavors are on rotation. For more information follow them on instagram @artisanicecreampaia or https://www.artisanpaia.com.

Artisan Ice Cream Paia

40 Baldwin Ave.,

Paia, HI 96779

https://www.artisanpaia.com/

This window to ice creamy heaven tempts you from the sidewalk

The new morning sugar rush: housemade vanilla soda with artisan vanilla ice cream.

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