Betty Ringer Ice Cream, the ice cream shop that opened in Sylvan Thirty on Friday night, went through 35 gallons in 9 hours. The supply was supposed to last a week. At some point on its opening night, the line involved a half-hour wait and serpentined around the shop front with its bright, rainbow-spectrum splash of color.
Steve Smith is a chocolatier by trade. He trained at Taillevent in Paris, a bastion of French haute cuisine, as well as other locales that include Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery in Las Vegas. He has wanted a brick and mortar shop for a number of years, but within those years, a glut of chocolate shop openings in Dallas deterred him. He changed course: “You know what?” he told himself, “I want to do an ice cream shop.”
His ice creams are all French custard based—heavy cream, whole milk, sugar, egg yolks. They’re similar to the creams he was churning at Taillevent.
“I love banana pudding,” he says, and so there is a roasted banana pudding flavor. Sweet corn and house-made blackberry jam is a seasonal flavor that will likely only last a few more weeks.
“I’ve always liked a nice, creamy sorbet,” he says. And so the mango sorbet is lush, its Thai chili peppers—which he calls boonie peppers—an allusion to his time in Guam.
Smith, whose mother is Filipino, was born in the Philippines, hence the ube, Filipino purple yam. With a father in the Navy, he lived abroad for long swaths, those influences sometimes gently insinuated in his ice cream. He will always have a tea flavor. He works with The Cultured Cup. Currently, he’s churning vanilla matcha and may bring in Thai iced tea, hojicha (Japanese green tea) with toasted almonds, or oolong cream. He will always have a vegan ice cream, always a sorbet.
“I didn’t want crazy flavors,” he says.
And so his dark chocolate is made without the intense addition of cocoa powder. It’s a soft, silky creation that seems destined for what may later transpire when he adds his homemade marshmallows and toasted peanuts and turns it into a creamy, dreamy Rocky Road. Also on the agenda: chocolate turtles, floats, and ice cream sandwiches for which he will be turning out what I can only imagine will be impeccable chocolate chip cookies topped with fleur de sel.
Hours: 12-9pm daily.
