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“I wanted to create ice cream flavors that only exist in Vietnam, something a foreigner would try once and always remember,” Thao Nguyen says.

Thao runs La Creme, an ice cream shop with fewer than 10 seats at 84 Pho Duc Chinh Street, across from the Fine Arts Museum.

It has become known for flavors like fish sauce, pho and sea salt.

Thao started her unusual journey back in 2019 while living in the U.S., where she began selling durian ice cream to the Vietnamese community.

At that time the durian ice cream available in the market relied on artificial flavoring or frozen fruit.

Determined to offer something better, Thao made her ice cream from Vietnamese durian. It developed a cult following, even among non-Vietnamese customers.

In 2022, with her U.S. business running well, Thao returned to Vietnam to create ice creams rooted in local flavors, and was surprised to find most shops still sticking to basic flavors like chocolate and vanilla, often using artificial or frozen ingredients.

After a year of research and testing, she opened her first shop in Thao Dien Ward in 2023 with eight flavors, one of which was fish sauce.

For many customers, it was a curiosity.

Thao says: “Using fish sauce in ice cream isn’t as strange as it sounds. It’s turned into a sweet-salty sauce that pairs well with the creamy base.”

The key ingredient is anchovy fish sauce, reduced with caramel sauce to mellow its scent and transform it into a umami-sweet syrup.

A drizzle of this sauce is folded into the ice cream base, allowing just enough fish sauce flavor to come through without overpowering the palate. Each batch of five to 10 kilograms of base requires two one-liter bottles of fish sauce.

Pho ice cream, fish sauce in Ho Chi Minh City

A Canadian tourist says: “We tried the Vietnamese fish sauce ice cream. It sounded odd, but the taste was surprisingly pleasant, like a mix of coconut and caramel.”

In 2024 Thao opened a second La Creme shop near Ben Thanh Market.

Here, she introduced an even more unusual creation: pho ice cream. The flavor was inspired by the iconic broth tourists always talk about when leaving Vietnam.

Making pho-flavored ice cream involves hours of steeping roasted spices like star anise, cinnamon and fennel. The resulting broth is blended into the ice cream base, giving the final scoop the aroma of a bowl of pho. It is thicker and more textured than usual, due to the spice infusion.

Quynh Nhu of HCMC says she tried the pho ice cream out of curiosity.

“That first bite felt like eating a bowl of pho, rich in spice and with a sweet and creamy twist.”

She adds it was much easier to eat than she had expected.

Pho ice cream, fish sauce in Ho Chi Minh City

Now in her third year of business Thao has developed over 100 flavors, all made from fresh ingredients. She makes 20-30 kilograms of ice cream every week without preservatives.

Every three months a new flavor is added to the menu. They fall into three categories: signature, must-try and seasonal.

Beyond pho and fish sauce, the shop experiments with other Vietnamese ingredients such as Oreo-and-sea-salt ice cream made with salt and mango.

In one case a Vietnamese-Australian couple getting married in late June ordered 300 tubs of La Creme’s sea salt ice cream to serve at their wedding in Mang Den Town, more than 600 km from HCMC.

The ice cream was packed in dry ice and shipped to the venue.

Thao says sourcing ingredients, especially fresh fruit, is one of the hardest parts of making artisanal ice creams.

She works with farmers and suppliers, watching harvest schedules and inspecting produce to ensure quality.

Lately tighter consumer budgets have also posed challenges.

Nevertheless, her Thao Dien shop continues to get regulars from the local and expat communities, while the downtown shop serves tourists and walk-ins.

Her prices are VND65,000 ($2.5) for a single scoop, VND95,000 ($3.60) for two and VND120,000 ($4.60) for a tasting flight of four mini scoops.

Takeaway tubs cost VND90,000-220,000 ($3.45 to $8.40) depending on size.

“The price is higher than mass-produced ice cream because everything here is made completely by hand,” Thao adds.