Ice Cream & Dessert
A Steveston gelato shop churning artisanal batches in house with Asian-leaning flavours such as Uji matcha, Hong Kong milk tea and espresso, plus mango yuzu and strawberry rose sorbetto. The owner trained in Italy; there are dairy-free options too.
Eating a cone on Moncton Street in August, while a tour group moves through, explains the appeal of the quieter option. Sweet Surrender sits on No. 1 Road rather than down among the boardwalk crowds, churning its gelato in house in small batches. That stretch is a short drive or a manageable walk from the village core, it is where a lot of Steveston residents actually run their errands, and it is far calmer in July than anywhere near Bayview Street.
Steveston turns into a dessert district on warm weekends whether it wants to or not. Thousands of people walk the boardwalk and a good share of them want something cold by four in the afternoon, which is why the village supports more ice cream than a neighborhood this size otherwise would. The pressure is seasonal and severe. Businesses here spend the summer at full stretch and the winter serving the people who live within walking distance.
Asian tea and fruit flavours are no longer unusual in Metro Vancouver gelato, but the good versions still separate themselves on restraint. Matcha should taste bitter and grassy rather than like green sugar. Milk tea should taste of tea rather than of sweetened milk. That is the thing to check on a first visit, and it tells you more than the length of a flavour list does. In winter this stretch of road empties out completely, which is arguably the better way to eat a cone.
In the Steveston neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other ice cream and dessert shops and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
A Steveston Village counter serving homemade ice cream by the scoop a couple of blocks from the water. It shares a building with another independent ice cream shop, which makes tasting your way between the two an easy afternoon detour.
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A Second Avenue scoop shop in Steveston Village with a broad range of ice cream and sorbet including local makers, plus bubble waffles, bubble tea and shakes. Picnic tables outside, prices below the tourist strip, and open until 9pm in summer.
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A Steveston Landing gelato parlour making small-batch Italian gelato in house from fresh local ingredients, alongside frozen yogurt. Classic flavours sit beside originals, and the waterfront location is why the line stretches on summer evenings.
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A gelato and dessert shop on Moncton Street in the middle of Steveston Village, and a fairly recent addition to the strip. Cases of gelato by the scoop plus other sweets, positioned squarely for the summer walk-up crowd off the boardwalk.
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A walk-up treat shop at the corner of Third Avenue and Bayview serving soft serve, flavoured slushes and the two swirled together. Cheap and fast, and positioned exactly where you want it after walking the Steveston boardwalk past the cannery.
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A small scoop shop off Blundell Road making its own ice cream in rotating batches, leaning Asian with black sesame, Thai milk tea, Vietnamese coffee and ube. No seating and no free samples, but the ice cream is dense and pints travel home well.
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From the blog
Longer reads from the editor, with the places worth a detour linked inside them.
The West Dyke Trail is about five and a half kilometres of flat gravel between Terra Nova Rural Park and Garry Point, and I ride it most mornings. Here is what is actually at the north end, which way to walk so the wind is on your side, and why winter is the better season for it.
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I live four blocks off Moncton Street, so this is the Steveston I actually use: where to park before the Bayview lots fill, how to buy fish straight off the boats at the wharf, the honest answer to the Pajo's versus Dave's question, and why the history here is not decoration.
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Richmond BC has far more park than people realize, and a lot of it is a gravel path with no washroom. Here is my working list of the ones that actually hold up with kids, ranked by parking, toilets, wind off the Strait and how far you are from a snack when it all goes wrong.
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