Pink Ice Cream is Toronto's spot for traditional Turkish-style ice cream.

Run by Halil Gokce, with the help of his daughter, Zehra Gokce, Pink opened its doors at the end of May 2024.

The storefront features fun floral arrangements, and the interior, well simple, is decorated in a welcoming soft pink colour. It's an ode to Halil's wife, Pink Gokce, who is also the inspiration behind the name.

Halil, a civil engineer and now business owner, brings 15 years of experience in ice cream with him from Nazilli, Turkey.

Since moving to Canada just over 2 years ago, Halil has been hunting for a store location to share his love for the cold treat. Having found the perfect spot in the St. Clair West neighbourhood, Halil is committed to delivering ice cream authentic to the taste of his home.

One of the defining features of Turkish ice cream is its texture, which is firmer and has a slightly chewy mouthfeel, thanks to the special ingredient, salep. Salep is a thickening agent that comes from the root of orchids. According to Zehra, it has underlying notes of vanilla as well.

For this reason, you'll find that the ice cream at Pink is layered and stacked instead of scooped. But this also means you can try more flavours!

Customers have the choice of 2 flavours ($5.50), 3 flavours ($7), or the mixed option ($10), where you can select as many flavours of ice cream as your heart desires so long as it fits in the cup or cone.

A few flavours currently on rotation include Chocolate, Milk, Banana, Strawberry, Lemon, Mango, and Tahini Almond.

When it comes to making ice cream, Pink prides itself on using real fruit and whole ingredients. The Mango flavour, for instance, is only made with four ingredients - fresh mango, water, sugar, and salep.

The salep gets boiled in water for approximately 5 hours until it reaches the desired consistency and then gets combined with the other ingredients in the ice cream machine.

From there, the ice cream has to chill for up to 24 hours before it's ready to be served.

The Mango was vibrant, sweet, and refreshingly cold. But most notable was how it felt like I was taking a bite of the ripe fruit itself.

Pink's most popular flavour is Tahini Almond. Made with tahini, milk, sugar, salep, and slivered almonds - it has a beautifully nutty and earthy taste. Slightly more creamy than the other flavour offerings, you also get the delightful crunch of almonds in between bites.

"Usually, I have tahini in my breakfast, and I was like, why are we not trying an ice cream with it?" Zehra shared.

One of my favourites was Banana. Packed with the flavour of perfectly ripened bananas, it had the comforting appeal of freshly baked banana bread.

When I exclaimed how good everything tasted, Halil smiled, saying, "This is why I'm making ice cream."

Other traditional Turkish flavours that will be core offerings on the rotating menu are Chocolate and Milk.

"When you go to Turkey, they always have Chocolate and Milk because they are the base flavours," explained Zehra.

Halil and Zehra hope to incorporate more specialty Turkish ingredients in the near future, such as pistachio, dried fig and chestnut. The shop will also be introducing Turkish desserts including halva, to be made in-house.

Pink Ice Cream is located at 666 St. Clair Avenue West.