Isa's Ice Cream serves traditional nieve de garrafa made with all natural flavors
You can find lots of ice cream and frozen custard here in America's Dairyland. But when Isabel Aviles and Rey Vences looked around, they didn’t see the style and flavors they grew up eating in Mexico.
They craved the traditional nieve de garrafa — ice cream made with fresh mango, tart tamarind, soursop, elote (corn), maracuya (passionfruit), coconut, strawberry, coffee, pepino (cucumber) and more. After years of working other jobs, they teamed up with Aviles’ son, Alexander Lopez Aviles, to launch Isa’s Ice Cream in May 2022.
The family makes fresh batches by hand daily. They offer nearly two dozen flavors, sold in 8-ounce single servings. Mango is the top seller, but every flavor has fans. Specialty flavors make occasional appearances, like Chicle (bubblegum) or Mazapan (a nut candy). Chocolate Abuelita was such a big hit as a seasonal flavor last year it is now on the menu regularly. Recipes use fresh ingredients prepared by hand, and dairy-free and gluten-free options are available.
The food truck is completely family-run, so when you visit, you’ll be served by one of them.
Look for Isa’s parked near Burnham Park at S. 33rd and Burnham St. from 2 to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday, and noon to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Typically the truck’s season runs through October, and their goal is to have their own space open year-round.
This summer the truck also will be at the Milwaukee Night Market from 5 to 10 p.m. Aug. 19, and West Allis Food Truck Fridays at the West Allis Farmers Market, 6501 W. National Ave., from 5 to 8 p.m. June 30, July 14 and 28; Aug. 18; and Sept. 1, 15 and 29. On July 22, Isa’s ice Cream also will participate in Milwaukee Food Truck Fest at Henry Maier Festival Park, 200 N. Harbor Drive.
Lopez Aviles talked with us about his family business and creating Isa's Ice Cream.
A taste of Mexico in Milwaukee
We started doing this ice cream because it originated from Mexico. My mom worked at an ice cream parlor back in Mexico, and my stepdad, his family were dedicated to making ice cream.
The ice cream is nieve de garrafa. Garrafa refers to a wooden tub, and this is traditionally made in central Mexico.
It is still handmade, though we do have machinery now. It acts in a similar way. The machine has a cylinder in the middle, and the outskirts there is a liquid that is supposed to keep it cool. It is acting as if it is the ice in the wooden tub.
Nieve de garrafa is a handmade water- or milk-based ice cream that is made when you spin the tub with the ice cream and it mixes inside. When you do that action, the ice cream goes from liquid to solid and sticks around the edges. What you do is grab a spatula and scrape the sides until it comes to the middle. You keep doing that until you have no liquid. It becomes very creamy (in texture).
Building the family food business
When my family was back in Mexico, they worked in ice cream parlors. They liked the concept, and they thought it was not a bad idea to bring it back home to the United States. There are some ice cream parlors that are Mexican in Milwaukee, but none stay consistent with the ingredients that we use.
My stepdad and my mom have been wanting to do this for years. This was their opportunity to begin their own business. Being from a foreign country, it can be intimidating to begin a startup. I am pretty sure they were waiting for me to be at the right age to be helpful. I’m the oldest. I have a sibling that is 13, and another who is 7. I’m 24. Now I’m at the right age where I can help them with everything they need. I created the logo, and I decided to put the barrel in the logo because that’s where the nieve de garrafa comes from. I got feedback, and people see the barrel and they know what it is we make.
All-natural flavors
We have over 20 flavors, available all throughout the season. We have flavors ranging from corn ice cream to soursop, which is guanabana, and the passion fruit, which is maracuya. The maracuya, that’s the number one seller. People also love the tamarind, coconut, mango, guava. We have mamey. We have coffee, cucumber, lime, strawberry, vanilla. We do have a queso, it is a cream cheese. People can be close-minded about that one, but once I offer a sample, they usually fall in love with it.
I really want people to know all the flavors are 100% natural. We don’t use any artificial flavors. We use real fruits and nuts. Like the pistachio has lots of pistachio in it. ... The mango, tamarind, cucumber, they all come with a little bit of Tajín, a chili seasoning. Then we also have a way of doing it in Mexico with these sorbets. We put condiments on them, so chamoy and Tajín seasoning.
Fresh, small-batch and made daily
Everything is made in-house daily. We want to provide quality products. We make it fresh, and we sell it at a pretty continuous pace. If I’m on the truck and my batch is running low, I notify the kitchen to start producing whatever flavor is running low, and we make a few more batches.
Our procedure to make this ice cream is a little more, it is a little harder than most ice creams. Most you just add the artificial ingredients and put it in the machine. We use real fruits. For instance mango, we peel them, cut them up, extract the pulp, then preserve it. We have to keep it in the freezer for a day, and only then it is ready to make ice cream. The pistachio is work. ... It is a little more in steps and work than making other ice creams. We’re making up to 10 batches per week of some of the strong sellers.
Creating memories and nostalgia in every bite
Some people get excited when they see these flavors because they want to try different fruits from different areas of the world. ... We also want to bring back memories for those who haven’t gotten a chance to go back home, give them a nostalgic feeling.
Some flavors, like mamey, they only had them back home. When they see these flavors, they take their first bite, you see their reactions and that nostalgia. You know that one scene in Ratatouille where the critic takes the one bite and it all comes back to him? That’s my customers. They say it tastes just like back home. That’s what we want, to bring those good experiences.
Why they love Burnham Park
People come to eat, and we bring a family traffic to the park. We’ve done events with the local schools. We want to be positive in the community and contribute. We’ve done things with Muskego Way Forward, and we’re open to working with private events, community groups. Our bigger goal is to bring this to a larger audience and be open 365 days a year.
Flavors of the month
The flavors represent the business the best. Sometimes we bring flavors of the month, like we did Mazapan, a Mexican nut candy, for May. For June, we did watermelon.
We also have corn ice cream; a lot of my Caribbean clients love the corn ice cream. They like to put cinnamon on top of it.
I’m producing ice cream almost every day. Mango sells out every day religiously. I make batches constantly, and I usually bring about two batches of six liter containers onto the trailer. Certain flavors are selling out more quickly, like mango, cookies and cream, strawberry, coconut — all those I have to have double, triple the batches.
The ones that get questions, I would say cheese, and corn, and nance, which is a fruit. A lot of Mexicans in the Veracruz area learned to love it because it is (grown) in that area ... This year I made it a goal for me in my menu to add a little image of what item it actually is, because last year I got a lot of questions about ingredients. People would ask what is mamey, what is soursop, even what is eggnog or maracuya? Even the cucumber, they think it is pickle flavor or something. So I added animated images to my menu, so people can know with a visual.
Fork. Spoon. Life. explores the everyday relationship that local notables (within the food community and without) have with food. To suggest future personalities to profile, email clewis@journalsentinel.com.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Isa's Ice Cream brings traditional nieve de garrafa to Milwaukee
