I Tried Pickle Ice Cream and It Tastes Like Bath & Body Works (but in a Good Way?)

One of the biggest food trends to come out of 2018 (so far) is pickles. Wait, pickles? You might be thinking. What could possibly be trendy about pickles? Well, I should probably clarify that pickle flavor is really what people are obsessed with right now. In the past year we’ve discovered pickle-flavored popcorn and almonds, to name just a couple odd things.

And now, to round out this strange and curious flavor trend, there is pickle soft-serve (go ahead and get your pregnancy jokes out now). Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co. — a brand-new restaurant in the Upper West Side of Manhattan — is the home of this intriguing new ice cream flavor. Obviously I had to go and try it out.

Let’s back up a second and talk about this new restaurant in New York — something we normally don’t cover on Kitchn, but is essential to address in the name of pickle soft-serve. Lucky Pickle Dumpling Co. is run by Jacob Hadjigeorgis, who is also the owner of the popular Jacob’s Pickles and Maison Pickle in New York City, and Glenroy Brown, who is the restaurants’ executive chef.

The pair are known for their oddball pickle inventions, and they told Refinery29 that for their new restaurant they wanted “to have something that reflected [their] childhood memories,” and thus pickle soft-serve was born. It currently costs $5.

According to Jacob Hadjigeorgis, the base of the pickle soft-serve is actually made from freshly pressed cucumbers. There’s also a little bit of pickle juice that goes into the base, according to People, and the resulting product is topped with salty pickle chips.

And now for the thing you’ve all been waiting for: How does pickle soft serve actually taste? It kind of tastes like that super-popular cucumber lotion that everyone in the ’90s used to wear from Bath & Body Works. But I liked it? It’s way more subtle than I was expecting, and the actual soft-serve really just tastes like a cucumber with the slightest tang.

The real hero of the soft serve is the garnish. Every pickle soft-serve is topped with these salty pickle chips that are just … wow so good. I recommend eating a pickle chip first and then taking a bite of the soft-serve because you get a much more pronounced pickle flavor that way. You know, if that’s what you’re looking for.

Would you try pickle soft-serve?