Best Ice Cream in Orlando, FL – 2025 Local Guide

Greenery Creamery is what I’d consider the first boutique ice cream shop in Orlando. The original location sits in Thornton Park, one of the few truly walkable parts of the city, and it helped kickstart the local trend of artisan ice cream. The shop leans heavily into vegan options, but they also serve traditional flavors. I usually judge a place by its vanilla since I think it is the cornerstone of good ice cream. At Greenery, the scoops are creamy but often a little too sweet, which can mute some of the flavor.

Prices are on the higher side at around $5 a scoop, which reflects both quality and the cost of being downtown. Parking can be tricky, so unless you live nearby it is not the easiest place to visit on a whim. Still, Greenery Creamery remains a key stop if you are exploring the ice cream scene in Orlando, FL.

Sampaguita is the sister shop to Greenery Creamery, but here the spotlight is on Filipino and broader Asian flavors. Located in the Mills 50 District, one of Orlando’s top neighborhoods for Asian food, this shop quickly gained attention with lines out the door when it first opened.

The menu leans adventurous, offering flavors you won’t find at typical ice cream parlors. Standouts include jackfruit chili nut and mango peach pie, inspired by the Filipino chain Jollibee. These seasonal and rotating flavors make it worth repeat visits for anyone seeking something new.

Their signature item is halo-halo, the beloved Filipino dessert layered with shaved ice, sweet beans, fruit, and leche flan. It’s colorful, refreshing, and a must-try if you have never had it before.

Sampaguita also stays open later on Fridays and Saturdays, making it a perfect stop after enjoying dinner or drinks around Mills 50.

Kelly’s Homemade Ice Cream is one of the most popular scoop shops in Orlando and the first spot many locals think of when the topic of ice cream comes up. Unlike many shops in tourist-heavy areas that rely on premade tubs from national suppliers, Kelly’s creates all of their flavors from scratch. That approach has been a major success, helping them grow into a local chain with locations across the city.

The menu covers the essentials like vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry, but also includes fun twists on familiar favorites. Cookies and cream, Cookie Monster, and rotating seasonal flavors keep things interesting for repeat visits. Each scoop feels thoughtfully crafted and distinct from mass-produced ice cream.

Prices start at around five dollars per scoop, but the serving sizes are generous. In fact, a scoop at Kelly’s is noticeably larger than what you will get at smaller boutique shops like Greenery Creamery.

For the size of Orlando and the year-round humidity, there’s actually not much competition in the homemade ice cream space. The few players already mentioned dominate the sector, so I also want to highlight frozen desserts that can scratch the same itch. KŌRI is a shaved ice shop in the Mills 50 District that has built a steady following.

If you’ve never had shaved ice, it’s basically thin, delicate sheets of ice drenched in syrup or a creamy liquid. It’s huge in East Asia with regional variations like Taiwanese shaved ice, Japanese kakigori, and Korean bingsu. KŌRI says they are Japanese inspired, but to me it eats more like bingsu since the base is shaved frozen milk instead of ice. The texture is milky, creamy, and melts fast on the tongue.

The bowls are massive, served in what feels like a dog dish. Good, but also cloyingly sweet by the end. Their drinks and cube breads don’t do much for me either.

This is my favorite place for shaved ice in Orlando, and I only wish they were open more than three days a week. Since they operate out of a small stall in the Kaya parking lot, the setting feels cozy and calm compared to busier Mills 50 spots.

The style here is Japanese kakigori, which may look overwhelming at first since the bowls are huge, but the texture makes it effortless to finish. The ice is shaved so finely that it feels like eating fluffy, watery air in the best way possible. Unlike fairground shaved ice, which is just neon syrup over rock-hard cylinders, Kokokakigori strikes the right balance of sweetness, flavor, and freshness.

I highly recommend the melon flavor if it is on the menu. The only drawback is the price, since each serving runs about $16 to $18, but the quality and craftsmanship justify the splurge.

Mills 50 is packed with Asian dessert spots, and Saigon Snow is one of the more unique additions. Tucked inside the always-busy Mills Market, this stall specializes in Vietnamese shaved ice. The technique here sets it apart from the others: instead of shaved blocks of ice, they use a conveyor-style machine that freezes liquid ice cream into thin sheets, which are then scraped into delicate strands.

The result is creamier and denser than Japanese kakigori, but lighter and more refined than the milk-heavy bowls at KŌRI. The texture reminds me of thin chocolate shavings that melt on the tongue, giving the dessert more richness and decadence without becoming overly sweet.

Flavors rotate, but the ube is a standout, and the pandan captures that classic Southeast Asian flavor profile. Saigon Snow feels like a middle ground between the other shaved ice shops in Orlando and is worth a visit if you want something different.