Overview
Attention all lovers of the cold and the sweet: Good Times Artisan Ice Cream, Potts Point’s newest dessert parlour, is open and it’s like a Wonka factory for soft serve.
The Good Times project is a joint effort between Nathan Sasi, the ex-head chef of Nomad, and wife Sali Sasi, founder of Poppy Renegade and director of brand partnerships at The Iconic. For the first stage of their tenure, they’ve be collaborating with dessert legend Christine Manfield who’ll be instore working her magic for the first week.
Good Times aims to revolutionise the humble soft serve cone and do away with all associations of McDonalds, pig fat and the 50 cent price point. It’s been a relative quick journey from conception to opening (only about eight weeks) but the couple had a clear idea of what they wanted. Sali says they were inspired by the from-scratch culture happening at places like Butter and Burger Project but wanted to take it even further and have complete control over everything on the menu by crafting it all from scratch. Gluten and dairy intolerant people will be delighted to know they can grab a completely gluten-free waffle cone or dairy-free soft serve.
“When you’ve got intolerances, whether it dairy or gluten, often you have to forgo ice cream or the cone. I can’t stand that!" says Sali. "Gluten intolerant people always miss out on cones. So we do make gluten-free waffle cones fresh daily in house.”
The process of creating everything in house is a labourious one, but they’re all about the ice cream. “It’s a lot of hands on deck, a lot of man hours, but we believe that you don’t need to forgo quality to have something that’s quick and easy,” Sali says “I have no doubt there’ll be days we’ll run out of ice cream and will have to shut the doors early but it’s not about money or churning out cones, it’s about making really good ice cream,”.
Courtesy of Christine, the menu is chock full of gourmet, bespoke ice cream sandwiches and soft serve with flirty and risqué titles. You’ll find the ‘Bite My Cherry’, ‘Rainbow Parade’ (a flavour made with the upcoming Mardi Gras in mind) and ‘Ziggy Stardust’ cones alongside the ‘Stoned Pony’ and ‘Lickalottapuss’ ice cream sandwiches (sass levels: 110 percent). They hope to collaborate with other chefs in the future to keep the menu fresh and fun but in the meantime, the cooking smells emanating onto the street have all the locals enchanted. “People literally come up to the door and ask us “What are you making?’ as they walk down the street," says Sali. And tonight from 6pm you can taste it for yourself.
Good Times Artisan Ice Cream, Macleay St, Potts Point, open from 3pm daily.