The best ice cream and dessert in Austin.
Amy’s for the institution, Lick for Texas ingredients, Dolce Neve for gelato, Manolis for a late scoop, and Quack’s when you want pastry.
The short answer is Amy’s if you want the Austin institution, Lick if you want Texas farm ingredients in it, Dolce Neve if you want gelato made by someone who trained in Bologna, and Manolis if it is late. Choice is not the problem in this city. Timing is. Two of the best bakeries in town close at two in the afternoon, the snowball stand shuts for the winter in December, and one vegan shop locks its door at eight. So every pick below carries the hours, and says so plainly when a place does not publish any.
Scoop shops and soft serve
- Shops across Austin · the institution, since 1984 · hours run shop by shop01
Amy’s Ice Creams
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The default answer, and the one a lot of Austin childhoods run through. Amy’s has been serving toppings since 1984 and counts 41 years in the city on its own accounting, which makes it about as close to an institution as a scoop shop gets here. It is still a Texas company, with shops in Austin plus Houston and San Antonio, so this is a local habit rather than a national rollout. Hours are the catch. They run shop by shop and the company does not post them in one place, so check the location you are driving to before a late stop.
- Burnet, South Lamar, Mueller · ingredient-led · Mueller opens 11am, the others 12:30pm Sun-Thu02
Lick Honest Ice Creams
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The counterweight to a nostalgia pick. Lick started in Austin in 2011 and works from family-farm sourcing, which is why the standing list reads like a garden: roasted beets and fresh mint, dark chocolate with olive oil and sea salt, grasshopper pie, pecan joy. A cilantro lime made with Urban Roots cilantro comes and goes as a seasonal. No seed oils, soy, GMOs, or palm oil, which they state plainly. It has grown to nine Texas shops across four cities and three of them are here. Mueller opens earliest at 11am daily and runs to 11pm Friday through Sunday, while Burnet and South Lamar stay shut until 12:30pm Sunday through Thursday.
- East Austin, Tarrytown, West Lake Hills · soft serve blended with fruit · hours not published03
Zeds Real Fruit Ice Cream
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate One idea, executed narrowly. The soft serve is blended with fresh fruit to order, so the flavor comes out of the fruit rather than a syrup pump. Three shops now: Harvey Street on the east side, Exposition in Tarrytown, and a third on Bee Caves Road that is technically West Lake Hills rather than Austin proper. Their own site lists addresses and phone numbers and stops there, with no hours anywhere on it, so this is one to call ahead on rather than to gamble a drive on. A warm-afternoon errand more than a late-night plan.
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Three Austin picks like these, every Thursday morning, in a free email from Carissa.
- East Austin (Holly St) and Hyde Park (Duval) · vegan and gluten-free · Holly daily 8am-10pm04
Gati
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The vegan pick that does not read as a substitution. Every scoop is vegan and gluten-free on a coconut milk base, and the list runs past forty rotating flavors rather than a fixed handful, so what is in the case depends on the week and the season. A blackberry cobbler swirl made with Texas blackberries runs while the fruit lasts. The Holly Street shop doubles as a bakery and coffee counter, 8am to 10pm daily, one of the two longest published days on this page. A second shop opened on Duval in Hyde Park in June 2026, noon to 10pm, with its own tamarind candy ice cream, a local-peach cobbler sundae, brownies, affogatos, and cake slices.
- MLK (Loyola Ln) · small-batch vegan · Wed-Sun 1-8pm05
Luv Fats Ice Cream
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Small-batch vegan ice cream with a flavor list that leans aromatic rather than sweet: caramel rosemary, ube black sesame, chocolate chai. It reopened in a shop on Loyola Lane, which is why it keeps turning up in people’s feeds again. Read the hours before you commit, because they are the tightest here by a distance. Wednesday through Sunday, one until eight, closed Monday and Tuesday, and closed well before the hour a hot night usually sends anyone out looking for ice cream. The shop keeps its hours on Instagram rather than a website, so that is the page to check.
- Far southwest Austin (Circle Dr) · Colombian family shop · daily 2pm-11pm06
Manolis Ice Cream Pops Sorbet & More
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The late one, and the only shop here that holds an 11pm close seven nights a week. Manolis opened in 2018 as a family business working from Colombian flavors, and the counter runs well past scoops: dairy and non-dairy ice cream, sorbet, Italian ice, cream pops, ice pops, affogato, shakes, and juices, built on real fruit and imported Belgian chocolate. Two in the afternoon until eleven at night, posted on their own site. It sits far southwest on Circle Drive, so it is a drive from most of the city, and it is the one worth making when everything closer has closed.
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Gelato
- Bouldin Creek (S 1st) and Plaza Saltillo (E 5th) · trained gelato · S 1st to 11pm Fri-Sat07
Dolce Neve
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The gelato with the most training behind it. Francesca, Leo, and Marco run it, and Francesca studied at the Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna and placed sixth of forty chefs at the Sherbeth Festival. Two Austin shops, with hours posted to the minute: South First runs noon to 10pm Sunday through Thursday and noon to 11pm Friday and Saturday, while East Fifth closes an hour earlier on both counts. A third shop is open in Houston Heights, so the brand is now a two-city one. The torrone ships if you want to send some rather than eat it standing up.
- South Congress (1400 S Congress) · made in-house daily · Fri-Sat to 11pm08
Gelato Paradiso
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate In a small shopping center at 1400 South Congress, the same address as Perla’s, which makes it the easy finish to a long dinner on that strip and the easy pause in the middle of an afternoon of walking it. The gelato is handcrafted on site daily with imported ingredients. Read the ownership before you go: this is a Southern California group, with shops in Corona del Mar, Laguna Beach, and Coronado, and Austin is the only one outside that state. The case in front of you is still made here. The hours are the other reason it earns a place: 11am to 10pm Sunday, noon to 10pm Monday through Thursday, and 11am to 11pm Friday and Saturday.
Snowballs and frozen bananas
- North Loop (E 51st St) · shaved ice, housemade syrups · seasonal, open until December 20, 202609
Casey’s New Orleans Snowballs
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The New Orleans style, which is shaved ice rather than crushed, and the syrups are the reason to care about the distinction. Casey’s makes them in house with cane sugar across more than fifty flavors, each available with or without soft serve and toppings, and serves them in compostable cups. The season is the thing to plan around, and they publish it: open until December 20, 2026, with hours contracting before that date. For now it runs 1 to 9 Monday through Thursday, 1 to 10 on Friday, and noon to 10 on Saturday and Sunday. It is an easy afternoon with children in tow, which is also true of a good deal of the hot-weather list for families.
- Bouldin Creek (S 1st) and a second stand near UT · frozen bananas · hours not published10
Bananarchy
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Frozen bananas dipped in peanut butter, vanilla, or chocolate, then covered in toppings, from a trailer on South First and a second stand near the UT campus. It is a cheap and specifically Austin shape of dessert, one idea run out of a trailer, and it is the counterweight to a section that is otherwise seasonal. The company site publishes a menu and no hours at all, and no street addresses either, so treat a late stop as a check-first errand rather than a sure thing. Best as the walking dessert after dinner somewhere else on South First. A trailer is the normal form for this kind of thing here rather than the exception, as the city’s food truck list makes clear.
Bakery and pastry counters
- Hyde Park (E 43rd St) · since 1983 · open daily 7am-9pm11
Quack’s 43rd Street Bakery
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate The most useful hours in this whole guide. Quack’s opens at 7am and closes at 9pm, every day of the week, which makes it the earliest opening here and one of the few stops that covers both a pastry before work and a slice after dinner. It has been serving Austin since 1983, out of a Hyde Park storefront, baking croissants and pastries from scratch daily, with decorated cookies, cupcakes, and cheesecakes in the case alongside scones, danishes, chocolate twist croissants, and jalapeño cheddar sausage kolaches. A sit-down room, a neighborhood crowd, and no occasion required to justify it. It is a coffee-and-pastry stop as much as a dessert one, which puts it squarely in the orbit of the city’s best coffee rooms.
- East Austin (E 7th St) · pan dulce and a breakfast counter · Tue-Sun 6am-2pm12
Joe’s Bakery & Coffee Shop
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Four generations of the Avila family, more than 75 years in business, and the same East Seventh corner since 1962. The pan dulce is the reason to come and also the reason to come early: the bakery runs all day until it runs out, and the shop’s own advice is to arrive early for the best selection. Doors open at 6am and close at 2pm Tuesday through Sunday, and it is closed Monday. Plan it as a breakfast rather than a dessert run, because there is no version of this that happens after dark.
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- Chestnut (Cedar Ave) · pan artesanal · Thu-Sun 8am-2pm, closed Mon-Tue13
Comadre Panadería
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Mariela Camacho’s bakery works in pan artesanal, made from whole, responsibly farmed ingredients, with savory sourdough croissants, corn-based baking, and a pan-Latinx range that keeps vegan and gluten-free options in the case. The window is the entire planning problem. Thursday through Sunday it is open 8am to 2pm, and Monday and Tuesday it is shut. Their own site is inconsistent about Wednesday, listing it open in one place and closed in another, so call ahead rather than drive across town on one. Treat it as a weekend morning stop rather than a spontaneous one.
- Rosedale (Hancock Dr) · French-Creole pastry case · closed Tuesday, Sunday ends at 3pm14
Épicerie
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate A café and pastry counter that has been in Rosedale since 2012, where owner Sarah McIntosh built out a dedicated pastry program in 2020. The case runs French with a Creole accent: beignets, almond croissants, and a quiche that changes by the day. Two scheduling details matter more than anything else here. It closes Tuesday rather than Monday, which catches people out, and Sunday service ends at 3pm while the rest of the week runs to 9pm. It opens at 10am on Monday and Wednesday through Friday, and at 9am on Saturday and Sunday.
The dessert worth ordering at dinner
- Near Mopac and 2222 · the dessert case is the draw · dinner ends 9pm Tue-Thu, 10pm Fri-Sat15
Chez Zee
Illustration: The Austin Newsletter, gouache plate Thirty-six years near the Mopac and 2222 junction, and the dessert case is what the restaurant built its name on, alongside a weekend brunch that trades on the same reputation. This is the entry for the night when dessert is the plan and a walk-up counter is not the shape of it, meaning a table, a fork, and a room to sit in. Read the service times rather than one open-to-close line. Lunch runs 11am to 3pm Tuesday through Friday, brunch 9am to 3pm Saturday and Sunday, and dinner 6 to 9 Tuesday through Thursday and 6 to 10 Friday and Saturday. It is closed Monday, so a weeknight dessert here means sitting down before nine. Finishing the evening where you started it is the other approach, and the date-night list is built around it.
What we considered and didn’t include
The things we passed on are part of the value. Documented for editorial discipline.
- Museum of Ice CreamThere is no Austin location, and none has been announced. The company lists New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and Singapore, with a Las Vegas site marked coming soon. Worth saying plainly, so nobody spends an afternoon looking for a building that is not in this city.
- The Cheesecake FactoryTwo Austin locations, both mall outposts of a national chain serving the dessert menu it serves everywhere else. The cheesecake is fine. Nothing about ordering it here differs from ordering it in any other city, which is the whole problem with putting it on a list about this one.
- Voodoo DoughnutFounded in Portland and run as a national chain. The draw at the East Sixth shop is the sidewalk it sits on at bar close rather than anything in the case, and held to the same bar as everything above, it does not clear it.
- Merry Monarch CreameryA small-batch shop people still ask about, and one with a genuinely interesting flavor list. The only hours it posts are a Friday and Saturday evening window on its contact page, labeled holiday hours, so there is no regular weekly schedule to point anyone at. Every other pick above publishes one, and that is the spine of this list.
- Sweet RitualThe vegan scoop shop a lot of people go looking for. Its web address no longer belongs to the business, and nothing current confirms the shop is open. Listing it would send people to a door that may not be there, so it stays off until that changes.
Common questions
- What is the best ice cream in Austin?
- Amy’s is the institution, serving since 1984 and still a Texas-only company. Lick is the ingredient-led counterpoint, founded in Austin in 2011 and built on family-farm sourcing. For gelato, Dolce Neve is run by a founder who trained at the Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna, and for something fruit-forward, Zeds blends soft serve with fresh fruit to order.
- Is there a Museum of Ice Cream in Austin?
- No. The Museum of Ice Cream has no Austin location and none is announced. Its own site lists New York, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Los Angeles, and Singapore, with a Las Vegas site marked coming soon. If the plan was a sweet afternoon out, the scoop shops above are the closest thing this city has.
- What ice cream shops in Austin are open late?
- Manolis is the most reliable late stop, open 2pm to 11pm seven nights a week. On a Friday or Saturday, Dolce Neve on South First, Gelato Paradiso on South Congress, and all three Lick shops run to 11pm, and Lick Mueller holds that on Sunday too. Gati on Holly Street closes at 10pm every night, Sunday included. Several other shops publish no hours at all, so call before a late drive.
- Where can you get vegan or dairy-free ice cream in Austin?
- Gati is the most complete answer: every scoop vegan and gluten-free on a coconut milk base, over forty rotating flavors, and the Holly Street location open to 10pm daily. Luv Fats makes small-batch vegan ice cream in flavors like caramel rosemary and ube black sesame, Wednesday through Sunday from 1 to 8. Lick keeps a vegan chocolate on its standing list, and Manolis makes non-dairy alongside the dairy case.
- Where do you get pan dulce in Austin?
- Joe’s Bakery on East Seventh is the classic, four generations in, open 6am to 2pm Tuesday through Sunday, and its own advice is to come early because the bakery runs until it runs out. Comadre Panadería in Chestnut makes pan artesanal from whole, responsibly farmed ingredients, 8am to 2pm Thursday through Sunday, and it is closed Monday and Tuesday. Mi Tradición runs a panadería and taqueria counter in Wooten with conchas, polvorones, and tres leches cake.
- Which Austin dessert spots are open on a Monday?
- Quack’s in Hyde Park is open 7am to 9pm every day of the week, which makes it the safest Monday answer. Épicerie is open Monday 10am to 9pm and closes Tuesday instead. Gati, Dolce Neve, Gelato Paradiso, Manolis, and Casey’s all publish Monday hours as well. Closed Monday: Joe’s Bakery, Chez Zee, Comadre (also Tuesday), and Luv Fats (also Tuesday).
- When does snowball and shave ice season end in Austin?
- Casey’s New Orleans Snowballs publishes its own season, and this year it runs until December 20, 2026, with hours contracting before that date. For now it is open 1 to 9 Monday through Thursday, 1 to 10 on Friday, and noon to 10 on Saturday and Sunday. It is a seasonal business, so check before driving over in late fall.
- Can you get dessert delivered in Austin?
- This is a list of places to go rather than a delivery directory, and we do not rank the apps. The closest thing to delivery on it is a shipped box: Amy’s sells pint collections through its own online shop with nationwide delivery, from $125, and Dolce Neve ships its torrone. For everything else, the hours above are the plan.
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