Dolce Gelato

When blackjack players learn how to count cards, knowing the deck’s current played and unplayed cards well enough to anticipate the next hand, their experience of the game feels different: more predictable, and not as exciting or fun. Our experience with Dolce Gelato has become like that. As two of our most-visited dessert shops in recent years, Dolce’s Tustin and Laguna Beach locations achived American-style gelato and sorbet mastery long ago – simply hyping their best (though decidedly non-Italian) recipes such as onyx cocoa/chili/sea salt gelato and blue curaçao/pineapple/lychee sorbet would be enough to keep most places in business. Instead, Dolce continuously cycles through flavors to encourage people to keep returning multiple times.

Every month, Dolce Gelato releases a collection of monthly specials themed around pop culture, movies, or mythology, and some are really eye-catching: One music-themed month included violet/ube Purple Rain and red velvet/brownie Thriller as just a couple of winners, with other months focusing on tarot, Star Wars, ancient gods, or Willy Wonka. Dolce doesn’t release all of a month’s flavors at once; instead, it uses Instagram to announce a handful of new flavors at the end of each week. Though not every flavor gets us excited, we’re happy when we see past favorites such as sweet potato and ginger, caramel, amaretto, and black sesame pop up again.

Our biggest issue is that the churn feels somewhat forced. Like a deck of cards, a core set of predictable ingredients get shuffled into recipes that blur together over time – this month, it’s ube, banana, guava, and coconut milk gelato; two months ago, ube and coconut cream; before that, ube, mochi, and almond milk. At Halloween, the flavors are shown decorated with pumpkins and spooky eyes; for tarot, topped with cards.