The Complete Guide to Ice Cream in New Orleans

New Orleans is an underrated ice cream city. People come here for gumbo, po-boys, and beignets, and they should. But the dessert culture runs deeper than most visitors realize, and ice cream is a bigger part of it than you'd expect. Year-round warm weather means there's never a bad time for a scoop. A deep food culture means the people making ice cream here actually care about what goes into it. And local flavors like praline, cafe au lait, and bananas foster mean you're getting something you genuinely can't find anywhere else. This is a neighborhood-by-neighborhood guide to the best ice cream in the city, written by people who live here and eat a lot of it.

French Quarter

The French Quarter is where most visitors start, and it's home to some of the best ice cream in the city. If you only have time for one stop, make it O.K. Ice Cream at 1129 Decatur Street. The ice cream comes from Quintin's, a local New Orleans maker that has been crafting ice cream with real ingredients since 1998. No artificial flavors, no artificial colors, nothing you can't pronounce. The thing people talk about most is the Screamers, which are ice cream sandwiches built to order with your choice of flavor between fresh-baked cookies, brownies, or cake. There are also thick, hand-spun milkshakes and a frozen coffee that's basically a dessert disguised as a drink. The flavor rotation stays interesting, with New Orleans staples like Cafe Au Lait, Polly Praline, and Bread Pudding Rum Ripple alongside creative options like London Fog and Cookie Monster.

Then there's Angelo Brocato, technically over in Mid-City at 214 N Carrollton Avenue, but worth mentioning here because a lot of French Quarter visitors make the trip. They've been making Italian gelato since 1905, and the old-school parlor atmosphere makes the whole experience feel like a step back in time. Between O.K. Ice Cream's all-natural scoops and Brocato's classic Italian gelato, you're looking at two very different approaches to ice cream, both done really well.

For a detailed breakdown of every option in the neighborhood, check out our best ice cream in the French Quarter guide. Ready to try it? See our current flavors or order delivery.

Uptown & Prytania Street

Creole Creamery at 4924 Prytania Street is the neighborhood favorite, and for good reason. They've built a loyal local following with creative flavors that change regularly and a few permanent staples that people would riot over if they disappeared. The shop itself is the kind of place where you'll see families, college students, and couples on dates all sharing the same small space, which tells you something about the quality.

If you're looking for something more polished, Sucre does upscale frozen treats alongside their well-known macarons and chocolates. Beautifully presented gelato and sorbet in a boutique setting. The Prytania Street area is a great part of town for walking, with shops, restaurants, and galleries nearby, so grabbing ice cream fits right into an afternoon of exploring. You can easily spend a few hours wandering and end up at either of these spots without planning to.

Uptown

Uptown has the energy of a college neighborhood, thanks to Tulane and Loyola being right there. The Creole Creamery Uptown location keeps the student population well supplied with scoops, and it's just as good as the Prytania Street original. But the real warm-weather institution in this part of town is Plum Street Snoballs. Technically it's shaved ice, not ice cream, but no guide to frozen treats in New Orleans would be complete without mentioning it. The line wraps around the block on summer evenings, and every local has a go-to flavor combination. It's a rite of passage. If you're in Uptown on a hot day, you stop at Plum Street. That's just how it works.

Mid-City

Angelo Brocato's original location has been in Mid-City since 1905, which makes it one of the oldest continuously operating ice cream shops in the country. The family brought their gelato recipes from Sicily, and more than a century later, the shop still feels like an Italian parlor transplanted to Louisiana. Spumoni, cannoli, lemon ice, and a glass case full of Italian pastries. It's the kind of place where you go for gelato and leave with a box of cookies too. The atmosphere is part of the draw. Tile floors, old-fashioned decor, and the sense that nothing has been rushed or modernized just for the sake of it. Mid-City isn't as touristy as the French Quarter, which means you're more likely to be sitting next to locals who have been coming here for decades. Worth the trip from anywhere in the city.

What Makes New Orleans Ice Cream Different

The flavors are what set New Orleans apart from every other ice cream city in the country. Start with praline. Candied pecans, brown sugar, and that unmistakable caramel richness. You'll find it at nearly every shop in town, and each version is a little different. Cafe au lait is another one you won't find done right anywhere else. It blends coffee with chicory, the same combination that's been poured at coffee shops here for generations. Bananas foster might be the most fun of the bunch. Butter, brown sugar, rum, and banana, frozen into something you can eat with one hand while walking down Decatur Street. And then there's Creole cream cheese, a tangy local dairy product that most people outside Louisiana have never heard of. It makes one of the most distinctive ice cream flavors in the country.

Beyond the flavors, many New Orleans shops prioritize all-natural ingredients. At O.K. Ice Cream, every scoop comes from Quintin's, which has been making ice cream with no artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives since 1998. The food culture here means ice cream isn't an afterthought or a generic dessert option. It's taken as seriously as everything else on the plate. People here care about what goes into their food, and that includes what goes into their ice cream.

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