This review would not be complete if I didn’t list the Museum of Ice Cream would it? For my next stop on this sugar filled journey, I bought a ticket to the Museum of Ice Cream, a pop-up museum near the Highline that was only supposed to run for 1 month this summer. However, when tickets went live the sold out almost immediately, and the sugary museum opened up a second round of tickets for the end of summer.
I was lucky to snag one of those tickets and could not have been more excited for my childhood dream come true – swimming in a pool of sprinkles.
The Museum of Ice Cream describes itself as a “lick-able, likable, shareable ice cream-centric experience” and I can think of no better explanation. With your $19 ticket, you get to experience the museum, get 2 ice cream cones (one at the start and one at the end), a helium-filled sugar balloon, all you can eat candy throughout the rooms, and a special “miracle berry” that makes your taste buds think sour things are sweet.
When you first enter the museum, you are greeted by a worker who has scooped gourmet ice cream for each person in your party (8 people enter at a time). You don’t get to pick your flavor because they only serve one type per day – which can be bad if you don’t like it – but I was lucky to have gotten a delicious berry and cream with rose water ice cream.
This scoop was so good I’ve been looking into how I can buy it when I get back to Chicago…
When you move on to the next room there is an ice cream cone wall, and here is where you get the sugar balloon filled with helium – it really has no taste and it’s all about the funny voice you get.
Throughout the rooms, there are jars of candy that you can scoop and take around while you look at art, but the sprinkle pool was what I had my sights set on, so I skipped the candy until after.
Sadly, the pool is not real sprinkles, just little bits of plastic in fun colors. It was fun but they only allow you 3 minutes in the pool and with everyone and their mom trying to take a picture in it, you don’t even really get to enjoy it.
In the last room, you get to try a “miracle berry”. They give you a shpeal on how it’s this rare berry from this far off place but it’s just a little candy which coats your taste buds with a glycoprotein that makes you taste sour things as sweet.
This is when you get your second ice cream cone, it was a white and pink swirl cone topped with a lemon (and when I bit into it, it really was sweet!) and pink sprinkles at the bottom. This was just a plain vanilla cone but it was a nice way to exit into the photo-playground where there was an ice cream themed swing and see-saw.
So how would I rate this Ice Cream:
Experience: 4/5 This museum was definitely fun, but the lack of real sprinkles in the pool and the fact that you don’t get to pick your flavor of ice cream, knocks this down to a 4 our of 5 stars.
Price: 2/5 $19 is pretty pricey, and if you’re going for the ice cream it’s nothing special. If you’re going for the overall museum then it might be worth it but I’m basing this off the ice cream itself.
Flavor: 3/5 While I really like my ice cream flavor, that is not always the case. Some people get really odd flavors and the ice cream at the end is just plain vanilla which is better off the street in my opinion (you get more for way cheaper) so this gets a 3 out of 5.
