Basil? Curry? Turkey? Bay Area’s most unconventional ice cream flavors and the stories behind them

On any given day at Berkeley’s Tara’s Organic Ice Cream, an Elmwood neighborhood favorite since the doors first opened in 2008, the dipping cabinet is filled with flavors that instantly make your mouth water. Lemon Blueberry. Mexican Chocolate. Peanut Butter Swirl.

Owner and ice cream wizard Tara Esperanza has created some 200 unique flavors since she started working with organic dairy and sugar 20 years ago. While many are familiar, dessertlike combinations we often expect in ice cream — Lemon Blueberry, Chocolate Hazelnut, Coconut Lime Sorbet — others are more adventurous. We’re talking Basil, Beet Balsamic and Chocolate Tarragon, for example.

“I get that a lot,” Esperanza says. “They make a face and say, ‘Basil? That’s weird.’ And then they taste it. One customer became tearful and thanked me when she tasted that tarragon flavor. I guess it reminded her of something her mother made.”

Flavors carry tremendous power, so why stop at vanilla? That’s the ethos for a small but focused group of small batch, chef-driven ice cream shops. That’s true not only at Tara’s Organic, but also at San Francisco’s Humphry Slocombe, whose bourbon-and-cornflake Secret Breakfast has a cult-like following at its eight scoop shops across the Bay Area. And Oregon-based Salt & Straw has turned everything from beer to turkey into ice cream, served by the cone or bowl at six locations, including San Ramon and Burlingame.

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Why they do it starts with the obvious: California is a treasure trove of fresh, seasonal, pristine ingredients — not just fruit, coffee, alcohol or artisanal chocolate, but also herbs, spices, olive oil, vinegars and, yes, root vegetables. Inspiration is everywhere. And without the competition of the supermarket frozen food aisle, makers can create unconventional flavors to honor a special ingredient or the person behind it.

Others, especially those with a background in fine dining, have been pushing the boundaries of what ice cream can be for years.

Esperanza had never worked in a professional kitchen, but she began cooking at a young age — she was all of 6, when she began peeling vegetables alongside her mother in their Italian kitchen — and has always been drawn to savory flavors. Her travels to Europe, Mexico and Asia further influenced her creativity in the kitchen. She makes corn and avocado ice creams that pay homage to her time in Oaxaca. And her kaffir lime and lemongrass are nods to her favorite Southeast Asian dishes.

“I want to expand people’s minds,” Esperanza says. “Ice cream is delicious, and there’s a lot more variety to consider than people realize. I’m not trying to pull any stunts. I’m trying to do what feels right to me and share with the world what I find delicious.”

Esperanza says she has a sense of what goes together and that most of her flavor ideas “just come to her,” sometimes in dreams. Oregano Orange Pepper popped into her head one day when she was cooking with the culinary herb: “I thought, ‘What could round this out be a really nice complementary ingredient?’” Sweet orange, with its acidic brightness, of course.

When asked if she has any unusual flavors that didn’t make it on the list, one comes to her mind: Paprika Peach. “I think the paprika made you lose the essence of the peach,” Esperanza says.

Humphry Slocombe, which recently unveiled its eighth scoop shop in San Mateo, has been synonymous with innovative flavors since owners Sean Vahey and Jake Godby launched in San Francisco in 2008.

Vahey came from the hotel world, and Godby had worked as a pastry chef at Fifth Floor, Boulevard and Coi. Their shared vision for an unconventional scoop shop geared toward adults where you are encouraged to try every single flavor was built on a boozy creation that came to Godby on a road trip.

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Yes, it was Secret Breakfast, the best-seller featuring bourbon ice cream and cornflake cookies. Contrary to popular belief, Godby did not pour bourbon over a bowl of cornflakes to nurse a hangover one fateful morning. He was actually in Ohio with friends, trying to explain the concept of what he wanted to create, when his friend, Eric, blurted out: “Secret breakfast!”

“I knew immediately that it would be a signature flavor,” Godby says. “I had been making bourbon ice cream in restaurants for years, and bourbon is made from corn, so thus — cornflakes. It probably happened in about five minutes.”

In fact, many of Humphry Slocombe’s unexpected flavors are based on desserts Godby used to make. At Coi, he was known for mini, curried peanut butter cookies served with warm, malted milk (hence, Peanut Butter Curry ice cream).

“Some things just make sense, to me at least,” Godby says. “It just has to taste good and not come across as gimmicky.” A flavor that didn’t work? Porcini, he says. “It just tasted like dirt.”

After 15 years, Vahey says, they have amassed flavors “into the hundreds.” While their core lineup is always available — eight flavors, including Secret Breakfast, Tahitian Vanilla, Vietnamese Coffee and Malted Milk Chocolate — the more unusual flavors rotate based on season or collaboration.

In a recent collab with Fieldworks Berkeley, Godby created a reduction sauce from the brewery’s Blackberry Parfait sour beer and swirled it into White Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie ice cream.

“We want to surprise and delight and really open up people’s palates,” Vahey says.

The creamery most on a mission to make ice cream less vanilla is probably Portland-based Salt & Straw, which has scoop shops in San Ramon, Palo Alto, Santa Clara and beyond. In its 12 years, it has found ways to incorporate everything from caramelized turkey to brie to chocolate-covered insects into its lineup.

Co-founder and ice cream innovator Tyler Malek has created more than 1,200 recipes, each with its own story. Malek says they think of themselves more as food writers or story hunters than chefs. Their flavors are based on special ingredients and the people behind them.

“Hopefully, when you walk in, you’re transported to a different world and allow us to take you on a journey,” says Malek, who started Salt & Straw as a food cart with his cousin, Kim, in 2011. “If you taste every flavor and still get your favorite Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons, that’s fine, too.”

Alongside “slam-dunks” like Birthday Cake and Gooey Chocolate Brownie, Salt & Straw releases seasonal menus based on a holiday or theme, like California chocolatiers or Halloween. Spring’s flower series included Jasmine Milk Tea with Chocolate, for example, and last summer’s fruit-centric lineup included Baked Brie and Fig Cheesecake made with an even mix of cream cheese and Cowgirl Creamery’s Mt. Tam triple cream.

“That’s the perfect example of balancing something unexpected,” Malek says. “We leave the rinds on and bake it over a Ritz cracker crust. It sounds funky, but when you eat it, it makes sense.”

Salt & Straw’s occasional Vault series brings back unique flavors that carry extra-special meaning, such as Black Olive Brittle & Goat Cheese. A few months before opening their first scoop shop in Los Angeles, Malek was visiting a farmers market in the area, when he stumbled upon a locally made jar of oil-cured olives from Santa Ynez. As soon as he tasted them, he knew.

“I had this epiphany that an olive is a fruit because you taste all these grassy, tropical notes,” he says. “So the question was, ‘How do we make this into an ice cream that makes the farmer proud and makes the flavors come to life?’”

Malek found the answer with shards of sweet-and-salty butter brittle made from the cured black olives, which he then mixed into a creamy cave-aged goat cheese ice cream created in partnership with Arcata’s Cypress Grove Creamery.

“There’s a trinity between salty, sweet and bitter, and that’s what makes things like salted caramel work so well,” he says.