If you are nearby Buda's Széna Square and suddenly start craving ice cream, we have a recommendation: Kedveskrém, a new place where visitors eat delicious scoops from homemade cones. Balázs and famous baker Józsi began making plans for the ice-cream parlor in February, and opened it in the middle of the summer on Batthyány Street. They did not dream up the most iconoclastic and overcomplicated confectionery in the world, just a small place where locals can buy their daily dose of ice cream.
A minute after we entered the store just a few steps away from Pékműhely, we found ourselves listening to Józsi’s tale about frosties that make perfect ice cream beyond the land of flying cows that produce the creamiest of milks. Or so he says.
We laughed way too hard upon hearing the invented names Csoki Csáki (Choco Chucky), Málna Menő (Raspberry Rad), and Vanilin Monroe. The aforementioned frosties greet us from the walls in the form of stickers.
Despite the oddities we encountered so far, we decided to stay. We found ten kinds of ice cream in classic Italian metal containers. There is always chocolate, vanilla, lemon, and raspberry, while the other six flavors change in accordance with the creators’ mood. The ice creams are great, especially because of their simplicity and not-overly-sweet taste, which is a real rarity in our age of sugary goods.
One of our favorites was banana, which usually is not the luckiest ice-cream flavor, but Kedveskrém somehow makes it work. The mango is intense and slightly sour. If you would like to eat something a bit less exotic, but still super fruity, we recommend the forest fruits and lemon. The latter makes other versions we've tried so far seem like mere parodies of lemon ice cream, especially because of its yellow color and intense flavor. The plum with cinnamon is actually like plum dumplings in cream form, and while the honey-and-poppy seed variety could have used a bit more honey, it is still delicious.
Apart from locust-bean flour, they do not use any kind of additives. The mango concentrate arrives from the Philippines, while the pistachio paste is from Italy. However, Kedveskrém mostly works with local ingredients: for example, they get the honey from the apiary of a family member. Nonetheless, the cream is not homemade, since a pasteurizing machine would not fit in the small store – which is why they do not call their products “craft ice creams”, and instead use the word “ice cream factory” to describe Kedveskrém.
The ice cream scoops are rather large, and a cone holds a minimum of 60 grams. Keeping this in mind, the price of 250 forints per scoop could not be fairer.
As for how the ice cream is served, we can ask for the standard cone or a small plastic box, but the place also offers locally made wafer cones. Balázs and Józsi worked with a cone-making machine at a French resort a few years ago, but such equipment would take up too much space in the tiny store, so they had to find a different solution.
They spice the crispy cones with a bit of chili and cinnamon, which gives an extra twist to the already intense taste experience. It is worth a try, you will not be disappointed.
