This South L.A. Mexican ice parlor, which was hopping during the Central Avenue Jazz Festival, has been around for about 20 years. A woman from Acapulco, Mexico, runs Cascada Refrescante and features playful, layered paletas. Bionico is a milk-based popsicle with strawberries, bananas, papaya, cantaloupe, apple and cream, raisins, coconut and granola. Pico de Gallo is an ice-based popsicle studded with watermelon, jicama, cucumber, and mango, seasoned with chile, lime and salt, a riff on spicy Mexican street fruit.

David Garcia opened this paleta shop, ice cream parlor and coffeehouse in 2022 featuring a Los Angeles mural and name that translates from Spanish as “honeycomb.” His father Othon bought ice cream and ran a fleet of carts in the ‘90s before developing his own recipes 25 years ago. They’ve been in a NoHo strip mall since early 2022. During my visit, David’s brother Jimmy, a hair stylist, was helping out. They offered 26 paleta flavors. I enjoyed their sweet-and-savory queso Oaxaca paleta with blackberry jam and a Horchata paleta with Oaxacan style crushed pecans, cantaloupe and pitaya sorbet.

Zach Mangan and wife Minami collaborated with pastry chef Malcolm Livingston, previously with Noma, on three different tiger nut milk based ice cream bars: hojicha, matcha, and sobacha. The latter features buckwheat and toasted buckwheat in the shell.

La Michoacana Ricas Nieves is a paleteria and ice cream shop that debuted in Garmar Plaza in 2019. A Massic freezer display case holds over 80 flavors. I opted for chopped pecan de leche (they also have whole pecan) and two paletas de nieve: blackberry and cucumber with chile. So good that I returned for three paletas de crema: avocado, fruta seca with ciruela (prunes, raisins, shaved almonds, dates and orange and green fruits), tequila con almendra (shaved almonds).

Late Oaxaca native Priciliano Mateo Bautista and his family have proven to be quite the paleta mavens, with four Mateo’s locations across Los Angeles, and certainly one of the city’s largest popsicle varieties. They divide paleta flavors by Fruit Cream (milk-based) or Real Fruit (ice-based). Favorites include Nance (yellow cherry), Black Sapote or Guava, many bars embedded with fresh fruit.