Salzburg: Organic ice-cream

Decent artisanal ice-cream made from organic milk has been readily available in Salzburg's inner city for years, but the first 100 percent organic gelateria opened only in March 2019: Höfingers Eisladen located next to Mozart's birth place at Universitätsplatz may be new as a light and pleasantly decorated ice-cream shop, but the Höfinger family has been making ice-cream in town since 1933. (Given the year I'd expected some historical details on the company's website, but unfortunately there are none.)

At present the ice-cream is being sold from the very plastic containers that the manufacturer also delivers to restaurants like Organic Pizza Salzburg, but the ice-cream tastes delightfully fresh and creamy and is well worth the 1.80 € the single scoop. Two scoops come at 3.40 €, three at 4.50 €, every additional flavour adds an extra 1.40 € to the bill. As for all other ice-cream makers in this blog post the ice-cream is heavier than you may be used from Italian gelaterie, and there's a range of flavours (like the poppy seed ice-cream) that are special to Austria.

The place is used by an organic confectioner's shop during the cold season – most of the ice-cream shops listed here re-open somewhen between mid of March and early April. However, the second Höflinger shop, the Kiosk "Unten am Fluss" at the Southern side of Marko-Feingold-Steg (the pedestrian bridge with the love locks) sold organic ice-cream already early in March, 2022.

The Höflinger shop also sells coffee drinks from a small home-sized coffee automat, but you may prefer to proceed next door to Fabi's Frozen Bio Yogurt located within the very building of Mozart's birthplace which sports a real bar-sized Italian pressure machine. This clean, no-frills ice-cream parlour uses organic milk, both for their extremely tasty frozen yogurt and the Italian-style coffee drinks.

In addition to the plain yogurt they occasionally have a passion fruit variety. Unfortunately the organic promise in the name of the place is restricted to the milk. Neither the toppings (with a notable exception of some caramelized nuts) nor the coffee sold here are organic. The yogurt comes in small, medium and large sizes, always in cardboard cups with a plastic spoon. So even if you choose to sit down with your frozen yogurt at one of their tables in- or outdoors you cannot avoid waste. This is not comprehensible as the coffee drinks are being served in creamware, and even worse: you pay less when taking it away in a one-way coffee cup.

During the cold season (which lasts from November through February/March) or on a (very) rainy day the only ice-cream made from organic milk comes from a local chain dubbed Icezeit and is offered by Cafe Timeless a few steps off the Linzergasse pedestrian area. Prices vary depending on the flavour: Basic ones like coffee come at 1.50 EUR the scoop, more elaborated ones like Rafaello (coconut-white chocolate) at 2.70 EUR.

Icezeit prefers fairly traded and sustainably grown ingredients, and runs several ice-cream shops both, north and south of the river Salzach during the warm season. Creamy, and with a mouth-watering selection of flavours ranging from the usual suspects to greek honey yogurt or peanut caramel, this ice-cream is hard to resist. Avoid the (additional) toppings you can buy on top as none of them are organic. They also have a frozen yogurt shop opposite the ice-cream parlour in Kaiviertel near Residenzplatz where you pay by weight, and in 2019 a new ice-cream shop opened in the tourist hotspot of Linzergasse.

All Icezeit shops keep open longer than given below when outside temperatures are high while you may find them closed on extremely bad weather days.

Almost side-by-side with the new Icezeit shop in Linzergasse you'll find the Salzburg branch of Eis-Greissler, a Kulmbach-based organic dairy farm producing their ice-cream from the milk of their own cows, often scented with organic spices from the Sonnentor farms (which by coincidence, have a shop next door).

The second fully organic ice-cream shop in town is located in the neighbourhood of Gneis and specializes in vegan ice-cream: The Veganer Eisladen is affiliated with The Green Garden restaurant, cafe and bar and a pleasant destination for a bicycle tour.

Höfinger, Universitätsplatz 12, daily 11–19, winter-closed from October
Kiosk "Unten am Fluss", Ferdinand-Hanusch-Pl. , Tue–Sun 11–18
Fabi's Frozen Bio Yogurt, Universitätsplatz 14, daily 11–19
Cafe Timeless, Priesterhausgasse 2 (Cornelius-Reitsamer-Platz), summer: Sun–Thu(Fri–Sat) 9–20(23), winter: Tue–Sun 9–18
Icezeit, Griesgasse 15 , daily 12–dawn nice weather provided (closed in winter)
Icezeit, Chiemseegasse 1, daily 12–dawn nice weather provided (closed in winter)
Icezeit Froyo, Linzergasse 37a, daily 12–dawn nice weather provided (closed in winter)
Eis-Greissler, Linzer Gasse 35, daily 11–21, Oct/Nov 2022 on niceweather days except PH 10:30–17:30, closed mid Nov through Mar
The Green Garden – Veganer Eisladen, Nonntaler Hauptstr. 16, Tue–Fri(Sat) 12(9)–15(14),17:30–22, Sun 9–14, PH closed

Ceased to exist

The following places do no longer exist, even though you still might find references to them on the web:

Icezeit, Mirabellplatz 2
Icezeit c/o Kiosk Sternbräu within Sternbräu garden between Griesgasse and Getreidegasse
Icezeit Frozen Yogurt, Kaigasse 13

Paris: Organic ice-cream

Small-scale artisanal ice-cream parlours are by far not as omnipresent in Paris as in Italy, or even in Germany, and although organic products are easy to find by chance you have to plan carefully if you want to have an at minimum partially organic ice-cream on the go.

Fortunately you have at least two options near one of the main tourist spots, the Centre Pompidou which itself is located near the tube stop Châtelet-Les Halles: Glace Bachir treats you with fully organic, Lebanese dairy ice-cream which has a wonderfully light texture. The smallest serving are two flavours at 3.90 EUR: Define the size of your purchase and pay first at the cash desk at the right-hand side, then move over to the left part of the shop where you present your receipt and order the flavours. My favourite is the delicate rose ice-cream which was so delicious that I did not even try the pistachio coated Ashta ice-cream when I went there a second time.

If you prefer a (vegan) sorbet head to the nearby branch of the internationally operating French Italian ice-cream franchise Amorino: They serve their all natural ice-cream shaped as a rose in a wafer cone, and while the quite heavy dairy flavours aren't organic, they always have two or three types of certified organic sorbet on offer. There are many more Amorino branches all over Paris, among others in the 14th district, Montparnasse, where they had three types of organic sorbet: cassis, lemon and blood orange. Avoid the so-called gourmet cups as well as the coffee at these places as you will produce easily avoidable extra waste (and it's not promised organic anyway).

More to try

For the sake of completeness: There are also more than a hand-full branches of the rivalling pan-European natural ice-cream chain, Unilever's Grom in town, one of them in the 6th district near Boulevard Saint-Germain, but since they do no longer promise organic ingredients you may as well stay away from it.

You'll better try to find Ümmy, an organic frozen yogurt stall on the university campus of the Cité Internationale Universitaire de Paris in the 14th district. A small serving of 100% organic frozen yogurt comes at 3 EUR.

Or you are lucky enough to pass by one of the two yellow Marguerite du Pré Citroën HY vintage food trucks which not only offer natural artisanal yogurt ice-cream made from organic milk, but also organic soft drinks, juices, smoothies, iced teas and coffee. The smallest ice-cream serving comes at 2 EUR.

Glace Bachir, 58 rue Rambuteau, Mon-Sat(Sun) 12-22:30(22)
Amorino Beaubourg, 119/121 Rue St. Martin, daily 11-23:45
Amorino Daguerre, 17 rue Daguerre, daily 10:30-24
Ümmy -- Le Yaourt Glacé Bio, 17 boulevard Jourdan, daily 13-21
Grom Rue de Seine, 81 rue de Seine, Mon-Thu(Fri) 12-23:30(0:30), Sat(Sun) 11-0:30(23:30)