Utrecht is a good city for ice cream; lots of people have their favorite place to go to. Mine was IJssalon Vorst, in-between Wilhelminapark and the University College Utrecht. On a nice day I would stop by for a scoop — two or three if I was with good company — and then go for a stroll around the park.
The scoop would be long gone before I even walked half a lap.
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The sign outside doesn’t lie. Their sorbets have heel veel fruit, and they put all sorts of spices into the ice cream. You’ll find combinations like orange & clover, coffee & ginger — ingredients you’d never think about mixing together, but they create all sorts of tingly sensations. And at one euro per scoop, it’s one of the best deals in town.
The flavors change every week.
I was a regular customer for a while, but I only had a chat with the owner during my last day in Utrecht. Jan is his name.
I don’t know his greatest hopes and fears, the company he keeps, or the thoughts he thinks on the slow days. (How funny that you can see a person regularly and still not know these sorts of things). All I know is that Jan lives and breathes ice cream, and that he likes to get other people excited about all of its possibilities. He’s very good at that.
I was snooping around the Facebook page and saw that he was recently rated the #1 ice cream maker in Utrecht. Gee whiz, some may think. Less than a year in the business and he’s already top banana in town.
But that’s not exactly the case. He’s been honing his ice cream skills for years. He said something about making ice cream in Paris, and some other places before this. Ice cream is his profession, and he takes great pride in it. He’s unafraid to experiment, to improve his craft. To combine old flavors and make something new, nearly every week.
(an approach like that will take you far in life, ice cream or not)
Jiro Ono, master sushi chef, says he has grand visions of sushi when he sleeps. I wonder if Jan has the same.
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The ice cream business is tough. Despite being near Wilhelminapark where all sorts of people and families stroll around, a lot of the business comes from the university students studying down the street at Prins Hendriklaan. What to do then, when all those students pack up and leave for their hometowns or go on vacation for the summer?
“We’ll just have to see what happens.”