Leopold’s | Small Batch Ice Cream in Savannah, Georgia

Warm Welcome to a Cool Place

At 11am, Mary Leopold unlocks the door of her family’s ice cream parlor. She steps outside to welcome a throng of customers eager to get in and enjoy Savannah’s favorite scoops. Her greeting is a genuinely warm one. Seeing the crowd at her family business makes her happy. She thanks us for coming and explains that what we are about to eat is small-batch ice cream that they make using recipes that date back to Leopold’s beginning, in 1919.

Fabulous Flavors

The ice cream strikes a perfect balance. It is silk-smooth, rich but not fatty, sweet but not cloying. Some flavors are simplicity itself, but extraordinary. Real bananas make banana ice cream special. Freshly roasted pistachios crowd each spoonful of pistachio ice cream. Butter pecan pairs butter and nuts brilliantly. Some flavors stake out new areas of ice cream bliss. The one they call Savannah Socialite mixes milk and dark chocolate ice cream and threads them with roasted pecans and bourbon-infused caramel. Rum makes tutti fruitti more suited to an adult’s taste than a child’s.

Traditional or innovative, what all flavors share is confident dignity. None are outlandish or silly or over-the-top intense. Each is just what it’s supposed to be: fully satisfying, and a reminder that ice cream can be supreme comfort food. Many of the small batch ice cream flavors appear on the menu to suit the season: Japanese cherry blossom in April and May, peach late in the summer, sugar plum fairy after Thanksgiving, and, of course, egg nog in December. The repertoire includes cones and cups, sundaes and banana splits, made-to-order ice cream sandwiches, floats, shakes, sodas, and parfaits.

Ice Cream Americana

Leopold’s exudes all the charm of an old-fashioned American ice-cream-parlor. Eager staff members, well outfitted in tidy uniforms and paper caps, go out of their way to take good care of customers. As I licked and spooned, they presented me a little cup of water that my ice cream-dazed taste buds welcomed.

While ice cream is Leopold’s raison d’être, it also offers a menu of soups, salads, and sandwiches, espresso drinks, and freshly squeezed lemonade. Whatever your pleasure, do include Leopold’s in any eating tour of Savannah, Georgia.