De Vos cites Paris’s Folderol as an inspiration—the ice cream and wine bar had to hire a bouncer to manage its crowds after a wave of TikTok fame. The Dreamery’s unexpected location in a residential neighborhood adds to its playfulness: it’s a destination, a treat for locals, and a delight to stumble upon all at once. Also, one could easily spend the day bopping from Day Trip to The Dreamery and Goodbye Horses—or the reverse—and discovering there’s fun to be had with combinations and mismatches of wine and ice cream. “It’s all about joy,” says De Vos. “We don’t push people to match. We can see sweetness working with sweetness, or high acidity profile wines cut through that—Muscato with residual sugar, an acidic Reisling, a spritzy Beaujolais.”
Chefs Jack Coggins and Will Golden are continuing to develop The Dreamery’s flavors. “We devise the flavors based on what we’re feeling and work according to what’s in season or what we’ve preserved—like the pear sorbet and fig leaf ice cream—or what we’re wasting—like spent coffee.” Toppings are playful, like a popcorn-infused sabayon and a classic butterscotch sauce, and they’re soon set to expand beyond gelato into frozen desserts. “We’ve got a Snickers ice-cream style bar in our sights, along with a riff on a Feast,” says Coggins. “Gelato-wise, the possibilities are endless. We’re excited to see what we can work with from our suppliers. If we were waiting on the sun to eat ice cream or drink cold wine, then we’d be doing very little business across the year. It’s an ideology.”
Ice cream may be about pleasure, but some innovators are taking a more intellectual approach, too—just take historian and ice cream maker Hannah Spiegelman, the founder of A Sweet History. Since 2017, she’s created over 250 unique flavors inspired by history, art, mythology, pop culture, and personal narratives. “I describe myself as an ice cream artist—I use ice cream, a universally beloved food, as my medium to help people experience the past in a new way,” she says. “I want my ice cream to be delicious, but I also want it to spark intrigue. I rigorously research every flavor to ensure each component works together to tell a story.” In 2024, Spiegelman created two sweets inspired by Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn—one being a milk thistle ice cream with chocolate birthday cake soil and chocolate-covered Jagermeister cordial cherries—and in 2025, she’ll be working on projects that turn ice cream into sculptural art.
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