Thousands voted for the Triangle’s best ice cream. This scoop shop took the crown

What started out as a simple hobby has become a sweet success for two ice cream enthusiasts who’ve proved they’re the cream of the crop for the delicious dessert.

Earlier this month, we asked our readers to give us the scoop on who serves the best of the best ice cream in the Triangle.

Of all the fan-favorite spots for a frozen treat, two newer spots to the local ice cream scene came out on top.

The next time you want to satisfy your sweet tooth, remember these dessert shops were voted the tastiest around town for classic and creative flavors and toppings.

Best ice cream in the Triangle: Sugar Koi

Location: 116 Kilmayne Dr, Cary, NC 27511

Website: sugarkoi.com

Local foodies know the Triangle is no stranger to good ice cream. But for Nat Jirasawad, he still had a craving to bring a taste of his favorite flavors from his childhood in Thailand.

Now, decades later, he’s serving up his own Asian-inspired flavors that have been deemed the very best in the area.

Before opening Sugar Koi, Jirasawad spent years working as a chef at Sushi Thai in Cary, where he was even making ice cream for the restaurant. Then he and his business partner ventured out to open their own ice cream shop in downtown Durham.

But back in 2019, he took over as the sole owner of what is now known as Sugar Koi, offering several classic and specialty flavors “with a little bit of Asian flair” — some of which come from recipes he learned to make from his mother.

“As I look around, I don’t see much Asian-inspired ice cream in this area at all, so I wanted to bring something new with something old and traditional,” Jirasawad told The News & Observer.

A taste of Thailand in the Triangle

Sugar Koi offers traditional flavors like vanilla, strawberry or mint chocolate chip. Plus, as he put it, “something new” like rose water lemonade sorbet or pandan (sweet grass) with coconut.

Then two years later, he made the move to bring his dessert shop to Cary, with his mother’s collectible ice cream scoopers and local art for sale lining the brightly painted striped walls.

The menu has 24 flavors, including four scratch-made staples: matcha green tea, Thai tea, toasted coconut and Ube, along with a rotating list of several other seasonal flavors too. All of which are prepped weekly.

One of the main stars of the menu? The warm Fish Koiyaki waffle cones, which can be served with two scoops of ice cream with your choice of toppings and whipped cream.

“I know we’re pretty good, but to be the best, I want to know we’re the best,” Jirasawad told The N&O.

Like Sugar Koi, the other most popular ice cream shop voted the best in the Triangle also stemmed from a love for making homemade ice cream.

Best ice cream finalist: Bold Batch Creamery

Location: Varies

Website: boldbatchcreamery.com

Every Friday, you can catch Maura McCarthy with her brightly colored ice cream cart and surprise flavors parked in the corner of Wolfe & Porter’s neighborhood bar — with sometimes a line of customers longer than the bar’s.

For such a popular ice cream spot that’s made a name as one of the best in the Triangle, Bold Batch Creamery began as a hobby during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic while working from home.

“I kind of started making it for fun for myself, and then eventually friends saw it on my Instagram story and asked me if I could make stuff for them,” McCarthy told The N&O. “Sometimes it was like throwing a pint of ice cream off my balcony, and when it was no longer just friends and it was friends of friends and then beyond friends of friends…[I thought,] ‘I can’t do this in my apartment.’”

One move to a commercial kitchen space and several ice cream cook books later, she ended up building a local customer base who signed up for email alerts about her weekly flavor drops for pick-up orders. Eventually, she even ended up leaving her job in higher education for a full-time career in the ice cream industry instead.

After a few years of operating out of a shared bake house, she’s since rebranded her business — formerly known as 12 Paws Ice Cream —and pivoted to a pop-up model with flavors that still rotate regularly.

“There have been hundreds, hundreds of flavors, even when I first started because every single week was different. I almost never repeated flavors until people started aggressively asking for them,” McCarthy said jokingly.

“I also have a lot of really cool customers that suggest flavors. Sometimes I’ll also go to a restaurant and get a cocktail and I’m like, “That could be an ice cream flavor.’”

‘Ice cream for ice cream people’

She wanted her ice cream made from scratch and as locally sourced as possible.

You can sometimes find a flavor collab on the menu,like the tomatillo cheesecake flavor from Mama Salsa and the Duke’s Mayonnaise frozen tomato summer sundae. Now you can get your scoops in sourdough cones, crafted by McCarthy’s partner who is a bread baker at Boulted Bread.

Soon, she hopes to bring a taste of her bold flavors in a permanent ice cream shop of her own in Raleigh — a dream that she says has gradually become a much bigger part of her drive .

“I just want a humble space with a happy staff, and a cool community, and a really cool product that I’m proud of,” she explained.

“Getting to work with food and getting to be creative brings me so much more drive and fulfillment. No matter what Bold Batch turns into, I’m so proud that that’s where I’m getting my start.”

This story was originally published July 28, 2025 at 10:56 AM.