Nice Vice Creamery in Yaletown

Disclosure: I attended a complimentary tasting of Nice Vice organized by YVRFoodies. Opinions are my own.

In Vancouver, there certainly is no shortage of dessert places but one shop in Yaletown is a particular stand-out. Nice Vice is Vancouver’s first ever 0% dairy, plant-based micro creamery. Their vice cream is a wonderfully guilt-free treat that is made with quality ingredients like fresh fruit, natural flavours and colours, and locally-supported plant-based products. Customers can also appreciate that vice cream is organic and dairy, soy, allergen, GMO, and cholesterol-free. As someone who is somewhat lactose-intolerant, I was excited to try out their vice cream at the YVRFoodies media event hosted by Rosalyn from the Conscious CEO Experience.

From Vice to Nice

The story behind Nice Vice is nothing but inspiring. Nice Vice is founded by Chris White who found a passion for a plant-based lifestyle after overcoming addiction. At the event, Chris talked about he and others turned to ice cream for comfort while staying at a recovery house. Being lactose-intolerant certainly made it difficult to enjoy ice cream wholeheartedly, so Chris came up with the idea of developing a plant-based dessert. Chris then went to Ice Cream University in New York and Nice Vice was born.

Nice Vice first operated out of a cute mini van selling at various farmer’s markets in the Lower Mainland. Then came a pop-up shop at the Hawkers Market at the McArthur Glen Designers Outlet in Richmond. Finally, earlier this year, they opened up a brick and mortar shop in Yaletown. Their products are created on-site. The chief flavour developer is Chris’ sister, Joselyn, along with help from a food scientist.

Nice Vice Menu

Dessert goers can enjoy a single ($5) or double scoop ($9) of vice cream. Cones are an extra $1. They also offer sundaes, floats, sodas, and bars. The flavours that were available that night were Earl Grey Bergamot with activated charcoal, Coconilla, Chocoholics Anonymous, Lemonhead, Mango, Vanilla Lavender, Passion Fruit, Banana Fudge and more. Vice cream base is made with sweet potato milk and organic coconut milk.

What I Tried

At the event, I sampled the Mango, Earl Grey Bergamont, and Strawberry Fiends Forever. While I have had lactose-free ice cream (but still has cream), this vegan ice cream is a first. I must admit it took some time getting use to – that is, to deprogram my mind from the cream in a traditional ice cream. I would say that vice cream is more like a sorbet but not so icy. It’s still smooth and melts on the tongue nicely.

To enhance the flavours, there is also a line up salts by The Salt Dispensary.

We also sampled kombucha from Spark Kombucha.

At the event, there was a contest for best tweet in which I won!

Vice, vice, baby! @nicevicecream #nicevice #yvrfoodies #consciousceo pic.twitter.com/G4NFe3DAoX

— Foodgressing / Areta (@foodgressing) May 25, 2016

The prize was a $25 gift certificate which I shared with my family and friends over the weekend. We had the three double scoops including Mango, Vanilla Lavender, Vanilla Strawberry Swirl, Chocoholics Anonymous, Coffee and Earl Grey Bergamont.