Actually no. My first reaction was not that mean. It was rather that of pure curiosity. Veggies as ice cream – something you hardly get in Vienna. I know of goat cheese ice cream at Eis Greissler. But here at Lepantos they pretty much have just the alternative flavors. Here tangerine-lime is already very conservative. And so this place calls its ice cream exceptional.

It is truly a place to enjoy extraordinary ice cream. The Lepantos at Ballgasse in the 1st district

It is a rather new ice cream parlor at the centre of Vienna close to Kärntner Straße. It is situated in a narrow side street close to the Steffl department store. And so as soon as I found out about it I had to go there. In the end: Vienna is currently a ice hot spot. You have to have everything that is somehow connected to ice: Frozen yogurt, bubble ice tea and now veggie ice sorbet.

So when I arrived at the place there was this one guy. It turned out that he was pretty friendly. First he thought I was a tourist with my camera and started talking in English to me. As soon as I answered in Viennese German it was clear that I was not a tourist. First he asked me if I’d like to have some ice cream. I answered with yes and said it was pretty hard to decide with all these atypical ice cream flavors. There were two flavors with alcohol (one was with cherry and vodka and I can’t remember the other one) and then there was the caramel with sea salt (the sea salt scared me off though – I have to admit) and of course the beetroot one. So I asked him whether I could try the beetroot ice cream. Hm, it was yummy.

The beetroot ice cream is certainly something completely different but don’t be scared it tastes just fine.

With this success at hand I decided to take the medium size which means you can choose three flavors. The cup you get is not very large but ok. I decided for the ginger honey one first and of course the beetroot. As a third one I took the tangerine lime sorbet as it was really hot and I needed something to cool me off. To eat the ice cream I chose one of the comfortable chairs outside. Fortunately there was shade so it was not too hot.

I took the ginger-honey, the tangerine-lime and the beetroot sorbets.

But it seems that it was still hot enough. Because the sorbet was melting pretty fast and since the cup was rather small the ice cream decided not to stay inside the cup for too long but made its way down to the table. So my mission was to eat fast which was not that difficult as the sorbet tasted really nicely. A bit sweet but not to sweet. The beetroot is really something yummy although I would not want to eat it every day. I still like the good old chocolate ice cream once in a while. The ice cream is not too cheap either as the medium size cost me 3,80 Euro. Compared to that: in regular ice cream parlor it is around 2,50 Euro for three scoops. But in this case I would rather compare it to the frozen yogurt places which are somehow in the same price range. In the end: you are not eating any ice cream but exceptional one. And for once in a while it is something really cool to get especially since they are regularly changing their flavors and I have heard of cucumber-wasabi ice cream already. Hm. Maybe the next time.

Info: Lepantos (http://lepantos.at), 1, Ballgasse 4; phone: +43/(0)650/340 75 96; email: office@lepantos.at; opening hours: Mo 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., Tue – Sat. noon – 8:00 p.m. , Sun 2:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.; you can reach the place by getting off at Stephansplatz and walking toward the Steffl department store then going inside and walking right to the other end to exit the store at the opposite site and there is already the Ballgasse with the Lepantos in front of you