Ice Cream Newbie Sweetens Autumn Chill

As New Haven’s first wintery weekend settled over Orange Street, the sign outside Elena’s On Orange lit up — and welcomed a steady stream of families seeking solace from the acerbic wind in a sweeter kind of cold. 

You might have guessed it was an 80 degree afternoon based on the volume of customers at the ice cream shop, which officially opened on Nov. 11 in the former home of Ayah‑H Market at 829 Orange St. 

Inside, ABBA’s ​“Dancing Queen” played peppily on the radio as the sky began to darken way too early. 

General manager Alex Depavloff transformed the store’s two flavors — vanilla and vegan chocolate soft serve — into East Rocky Roads (a nutty, smores-like sundae) and Canner Crunches (a beachy toffee-caramel sundae). He topped cups and cones with peanut butter chips, marshmallows, and Maldon sea salt.

Depavloff had worked as a bakery manager at Maison Mathis prior to joining Elena’s on Orange (pronounced ​“El-ena’s”). ​“There’s been quite a bit of a learning curve,” he said, but he’s been able to draw from his baked-goods background by contributing homemade cookies and an original caramel recipe to the ice cream shop’s menu. 

Depavloff moved to the East Rock neighborhood a year ago. He began working with owner and fellow East Rocker and neighborhood management chair Elena Grewal at the beginning of October, finalizing store layouts and ordering equipment. He now keeps the store running for its winter hours every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday from 12 to 8 p.m.

The ice cream shop is unique in that it makes many of its toppings and one of its flavors — the rich, oat-milk-based chocolate — in-house. The vanilla flavor, produced by Pennsylvania-based Leiby’s Dairy, joins the store’s other offerings in comprising all-natural, preservative-free ingredients. 

When Grewal first applied to the Board of Zoning Appeals for parking relief for the ice cream shop, she also applied for a use variance that would allow her shop to serve wine and beer there too. That ignited some resistance from a handful of neighbors, who went so far as to sue her and the BZA over the board’s approval. That lawsuit is still pending.

But since the place opened — sans alcohol for now — Depavloff said that Elena’s has received a warm welcome from neighbors. 

“People had heard about it for a long time,” he said. Neighbors have stopped by simply to say hi. In the past couple of weeks, the California native has grown to love his new neighborhood and city even more: ​“I’m learning a lot about New Haven. It’s more close-knit than I realized.”

“People don’t seem to be deterred by the cold,” he added.

The Rosa family, who made the trek to Elena’s On Orange from Westville, certainly wasn’t. Evan Rosa and his four kids, Nan, Lux, Ben, and Gus, drove to Elena’s on a whim — and gave the ice cream store enthusiastic reviews. 

Nan proclaimed the fudge topping her chocolate swirl ​“the best chocolate sauce I’ve ever had in my life.”

Nan (who ordered chocolate) and Lux (who tried the vanilla) rated their ice cream a 9 out of 10, praising the ​“rich” and ​“more complex” flavors while knocking off a point for a relatively small range of flavors. (They might be appeased by the seasonal flavors that Grewal and Depavloff are planning to offer, including a Thanksgiving-inspired pumpkin one coming up soon.) Ben, meanwhile, offered a 10 out of 10 for his vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. 

Four-year-old Gus conveyed his satisfaction with a smile and a thumbs up.

The vegan chocolate flavor camouflaged seamlessly alongside the dairy-based vanilla, if the Rosas’ impressions are to be trusted. Evan and Nan, who sampled the chocolate, didn’t realize they were eating oat-milk-based soft serve until this reporter mentioned it. For the vanilla-inclined lactose intolerant, the ice cream shop offers free Lactaid pills to customers. (Click here to read an article by the New Haven Register’s Meghan Friedmann about the shop’s opening and an interview with its founder, Elena Grewal.)

No Dairy, No Problem

To this vegan reporter, the non-dairy chocolate option was the main reason I casually mentioned to my editor one day last week that if he needed anyone to review Elena’s, I could probably find a way to fit an ice cream excursion into my schedule. 

Having shelled out more than I’d like to admit at Ben and Jerry’s over the past few years to fulfill my ice cream needs, I arrived hopeful that I’d found a new, locally-rooted and somewhat more affordable dessert hub. I wasn’t disappointed.

Elena’s was the first soft-serve ice cream I’d tasted since I first eschewed animal products in 2019, so I kept my order simple: plain chocolate ice cream on a waffle cone.

While most non-dairy ice creams tend to overshoot their sweetness, Elena’s house-made, dark-chocolatey soft serve had a depth of flavor I hadn’t expected and wanted to savor — like how fancy, ​“full-bodied” coffee tastes after consistently drinking Folgers, or how a fresh new pillow feels after sleeping on one that’s worn-in and too soft. 

Most of all, I’d forgotten how fun it is to eat ice cream that’s constantly changing shape, and that melts in your mouth almost immediately.

My Independent colleague and fellow ice cream-taster Nora Grace-Flood, whose omnivorous palette is probably more trustworthy than mine, enjoyed her ​“Crunchy East Rocker” sundae, which she’d ordered in honor of our vegetarian East-Rock-based editor, Tom. Her compostable bowl of vanilla ice cream was adorned with honey, pecans, and sea salt. 

Nora said she appreciated the balance of sweetness and saltiness, and noted that the honey transformed the sundae’s flavor.

We resolved to come back soon, eager to numb the winter blues we expect to set in soon with more delicious, brain-freezing treats.