Salt & Straw Ice Cream Opens in Larchmont Village

At this rate, we can all skip the trip north to Portland, because all their best food seems to be coming here. Stumptown's already here, Andy Ricker's opening his wildly popular Pok Pok this fall in Chinatown — and much sooner than that, specifically this Saturday, Sept. 13, the Portland-based small-batch ice cream company Salt & Straw is opening its long-anticipated doors in Larchmont Village. Now all we need is Nong's chicken and rice cart and the people who actually live in Portland can stop complaining about Angelenos relocating to their town — because we won't have to.

Of course we've been able to get Salt & Straw before now, thanks to the freezer case at Joan's on Third and the Salt & Straw ice cream truck that drove around town this summer. (Thank you, thank you.) But this is the first brick-and-mortar outside Portland for owner Kim Malek and head ice cream maker Tyler Malek, the cousins who launched the ice cream company in 2011. 

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interior of Salt & Straw; Credit: Leela Cyd

The Larchmont shop is designed by Portland’s Osmose Design. Expect a pretty shop, as artisan ice cream shops should be, with a red-and-white striped awning that's a reminder of the similarly striped ice cream cart that the Maleks started with. The shop also has a carved wooden storefront, handmade paper and plaster ceiling tiles, hand-painted light fixtures and seating at the window bar.

As for the ice cream, it's all handmade in L.A. with cream from local dairy Rockview Farms. The ingredients going into the highly seasonal flavors will use Kern Co. almonds, Burkart Farms peaches and booze from downtown's Greenbar Distillery. This will change up, of course, so you can expect variable flavors, as well as sundaes, whole pint milkshakes and floats. Finally, an advantage to the climate being about a hundred degrees hotter here than in Portland.

Salt & Straw's Tyler Malek, with ice cream; Credit: Leela Cyd

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