The Disney Springs Sweet Tooth Crawl
Two ranked top-ten ice cream shops, a half-pound cookie and a proper soda fountain, all on one waterfront. The crawl, run west to east, with the rankings behind every stop.
3 minute read
Some districts have a dessert place. Disney Springs has a dessert strategy — two of our ranked top-ten ice cream shops, a bakehouse whose cookies weigh nearly half a pound, a French patisserie that plates like a jeweler, and a gelato counter with Florentine credentials, all within one walkable waterfront. This is the crawl, ordered the way we would actually run it: from the West Side east, scoop economics first, spectacle last, with the full rankings behind every claim.
First stop: Salt & Straw, for the adventurous
Salt & Straw, next to the AMC theaters on the West Side, is the Portland-born, small-batch shop that treats ice cream as an argument. The classics case runs to flavors like Sea Salt with Caramel Ribbons, Chocolate Gooey Brownie, Honey Lavender, Strawberry Honey Balsamic with Black Pepper and Arbequina Olive Oil; a rotating seasonal series changes monthly, and Florida gets its own nods in flavors like Panther Coffee Chocolate Tres Leches and The Salty Donut Guava + Cheese. It ranks No. 6 in our Best Ice Cream & Desserts in Orlando ranking with a Net Score of 91.1 — high company in a category led by Sampaguita, whose story is told in our winner feature. The move for two people: a flight, split, so the olive oil versus cookie dough debate can be settled empirically. Staff will happily let you taste before you commit, which at these flavors is less a courtesy than a necessity.
Second stop: Gideon’s Bakehouse, for the spectacle
Cross into The Landing and join whatever queue Gideon’s Bakehouse is running — on busy days it goes virtual, so put your name down early in the visit and let the text come to you. Inside, the bakery is a gothic little library of a room, all dark wood and curiosities, selling cookies that approach half a pound each: the Original Chocolate Chip is the flagship, joined by rotating monthly flavors, cake slices and cold brews built to stand up to the sugar. One cookie is a dessert for two; two cookies is tomorrow’s breakfast and a story. Gideon’s is unranked in our program, and we say so plainly — but no honest sweet-tooth crawl of this district skips it. It is the stop your group will describe to people back home.
Third stop: Ghirardelli, for the classicists
The Marketplace end of the crawl belongs to Ghirardelli Soda Fountain & Chocolate Shop, at 1710 E Buena Vista Dr, where the order is a sundae and the sundae is built on the house’s own chocolate — the World Famous Hot Fudge Sundae is the headline, with banana splits and brownie sundaes behind it. It ranks No. 10 in our ice cream ranking with a Net Score of 89.3, and it earns the spot the old-fashioned way: an actual soda fountain, whipped cream with intent, and a chocolate shop attached so the experience can be taken home in a bag. After Salt & Straw’s experiments, Ghirardelli is the palate’s home base — the flavor of every childhood, executed properly.
The refinements: Amorette’s and Vivoli
Two stops reward the crawler who is not yet done. Amorette’s Patisserie in Town Center is Disney’s own French bakery, turning out éclairs, macarons, petit cakes and character-topped domes that are almost too composed to eat — almost. Vivoli il Gelato brings a Florentine gelato name to the district with scoops and affogatos for the traditionalists. Either makes a graceful final course if the group has paced itself; neither requires the commitment of a Gideon’s queue.
How to run the crawl
Start at Salt & Straw while the West Side is still quiet, put your name in at Gideon’s as you pass The Landing, eat the classic sundae in the Marketplace, and finish wherever your reservation text finds you. Everything here is plotted in our Disney Springs hub and on the Top Spots Map, and the crawl pairs naturally with dinner from Where to Eat in Disney Springs — just make the reservation for after the first scoop, and tell the table the truth about why nobody is hungry. For the resort-wide picture, our Disney World hub has the rest of the sugar map.
Photo: elisfkc, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Orlando Citizen by email
The weekly edition, in your inbox
One email, every Saturday: the week’s edition of Orlando Citizen — the week’s stories, rankings and winners, gathered in one place. Free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Related Stories
Editor’s Picks
Spotted an error? Tell us — corrections · How we rank