There was a small corner shop next to my elementary school back when I was a kid. Whenever my grandfather gave me pocket money, I would run there full of excitement after school. The shelves were always stacked to the ceiling with transparent plastic containers filled with sweets in every shape and color. I feel the same way when I’m at Kuréme. Instead of sour snakes and fizzy UFOs, there’s creamy ice cream, and instead of transparent boxes, there’s a display of pozzetti. But just like the colorful bags, the selection feels like a playground for your imagination. Over 300 possible combinations await you here, thanks to 40 flavors and three glazes (matcha, chocolate, and pistachio) that you can dip the scoops into. The interior of Kuréme is minimalist, shiny, sculptural — exactly as co-founders My and Duong imagined it. The ice cream is produced in small batches, with Gabriele Atzeni, Head of Production and a good friend of the co-founders. The trio combines traditional Italian craftsmanship with new and unusual flavors, inspired by travels and childhood memories. Similar to perfumes, many flavors have top, middle, and base notes. The result ranges from reinterpreted classics to desserts and dishes transformed into ice cream. Mango Sticky Rice combines pandan, coconut milk, and mango swirls; Bananatella translates stracciatella into a banana split dream; Bufala combines buffalo milk ricotta with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

With Viet Coffee, condensed milk is deliberately added to the finished ice cream mixture — this is how My and Duong recreate the experience of Vietnamese iced coffee as closely as possible. That’s exactly what makes Kuréme so special to me: in addition to the wonderful flavor combinations, they also go wild with textures, yet nothing is created arbitrarily, but with a concept in mind. You also have the opportunity to do your own thing. Are you a matcha ultra? Get a scoop of matcha, or a scoop of matchatella with matcha glaze on top? Or a scoop of matcha, but with a chocolate glaze? Or maybe you want to try something really crazy. There are no limits to the combinations. Five to six vegan varieties are always on offer — sometimes fruity like mandarin, sometimes creamy like douhua, inspired by the Chinese silken tofu dessert. The selection is huge and the possibilities endless. And I feel transported back to my childhood, when three euros put the world of sweets at my feet.

Text & Photos: Robyn Steffen

Kuréme, Adalbertstr.23, 10997 Berlin–Kreuzberg; map

@thisiskureme