Beach Street is a famous location in Penang and has served as the commercial and financial heart of Georgetown since 1786 as well as being a part of the Unesco World Heritage site. The colonial architecture and its important role in commerce, finance and trading allowed it to stand the test of time over the past 200 years. While Beach Street is still a place for commerce and finance,it is now also a place for tourists to visit and experience the history and culture of Penang.
Hidden away in Beach Street is an ice cream café called Wonkie Ice Cream. Wonkie Ice Cream was originally known as 3-Tiers but was renamed to Wonkie in Jan 2024. The owner, Ms. JY developed her love for ice cream making overseas as she would create flavours through trial and error. This would in turn, motivate and inspire her to go on to establish Wonkie Ice Cream in Beach Street, Penang. She believes that food brings people together and ice cream is a blank canvas which allows creativity to flow.
When stepping into Wonkie Ice Cream, our eyes were drawn in by the décor and furnishing of the cafe that really represents Ms.JY’s vision of “Not your usual boring desserts”, which is the tagline on the Instagram profile.The ice cream counter where you can view the flavours of ice cream is adorned with bubbles on the ceiling giving it a dream-like wonder. The walls of the cafe are painted mainly in yellow and pink giving it a very chic and playful vibe and goes well with the uniquely shaped furniture which certainly gives you the impression that your experience here will certainly not be boring and plain.
Wonkie Ice Cream serves two different types of ice creams; for non-alchoholic ice creams, they have flavours such as Mokuren (Green Tea), Lemon Basil, Mango Sherbert, Earl Grey Brownie and Salted Caramel with Chocolate Potato Chips for those who are sweet tooth only. For those looking for a bit more buzz, their alcoholic ice creams are made by infusing alcohols into the ice cream and ingredients such as Whiskey, Rum, Bourbon and Guinness Stout which create a unique mix of alcohol and ice cream flavours such as Jim Beam Walnut, Rum and Raisin, Coffee Bourbon and Guiness Stout.
You can choose to have the ice creams served in a standard cup, in their handmade burn butter waffle cones that are made freshly for you, as an alcoholic sundae cup or as a beer float.
We tried the Coffee Bourbon which was creamy, and the alcohol was not overpowering at all, rather it was a perfectly well mixed flavour and very delicious. The Amaretto’s Love was also creamy and had dark chocolate bits to balance the sweet ice cream. We had a memorable time at the café with the vibrant ambience and the delicious ice creams served.
We highly recommend checking out Wonkie Ice Cream at Beach Street as it is the perfect place for sweet tooth and for the vibrant ambience while surrounded by historical landmarks in Penang.
