Uli's Gelato

Gelato churned in the Spring Arcade

Uli's makes its gelato where it sells it, in a kitchen inside Downtown LA's Spring Arcade building, which is where the business started in April 2014 and where the machine imported from Italy still runs. Production is small batch and the flavour list is the argument: Stracciatella, Sea Salt Chocolate, Hibiscus with Mint, Baku Saffron, California Pistachio and Speculoos Cookies sit together without any of them reading as a novelty. Baku Saffron points back to the founder's childhood in Azerbaijan. California Pistachio is made with whole pistachios from the oldest pistachio farm in the state, the kind of sourcing decision that shows up in the cup rather than only on the label. The list stays short by design, which is what lets each batch turn over instead of sitting.

Fruit bought at the farmers market

Sourcing is the through line. The kitchen shops the Wednesday farmers market in Santa Monica, and growers around Los Angeles set fruit aside for these flavours specifically, which is why the seasonal end of the list shifts rather than repeating. That matters more for gelato than for ice cream, because a lower fat base carries fruit acidity straight through instead of rounding it off, and a mediocre peach has nowhere to hide. Vegan flavours are made on the same principle rather than as a separate concession, and they sit in the standard list. Los Angeles Magazine readers voted the gelato the city's best ice cream in 2020, having already given it best gelato two years earlier.

Buy a pint, or two, and take it with you

This is a stop rather than a room to sit in. Gelato leaves the building in pints and mini cups through the to-go window, and the same product turns up on grocery shelves and restaurant menus across the region, which means the counter is worth using when you want it fresh from the kitchen that made it. Order by flavour rather than by format: Stracciatella is the baseline read on the base, California Pistachio is the one to judge the sourcing on, and Baku Saffron is the flavour nothing else in the city is doing. Curated boxes make sense when the order is for a table rather than a walk, and the seasonal fruit flavours are the ones to ask about first. Whatever the format, it is made a few feet from where you pick it up, and that is the point of coming here rather than buying a pint elsewhere.