(Danielle Dorsey, Betty Hallock, Stephanie Breijo and Melody Xu / Los Angeles Times; Justine Jaime / For The Times)
25 of the coolest slushies and frozen cocktails to beat the heat in L.A.
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L.A.’s annual summer heat wave is upon us, with triple-digit temperatures breaking records across the region. During this time of year, ovens and stoves go dormant as Southern Californians seek to sate their thirst and hunger with chilled and frozen options, from refreshing poke bowls and ceviches to shaved ice and soft serve.
Our restaurant scene is responding in kind by adding a slew of frozen beverages to their menus. That means you can get your daily coffee or matcha blended for a cool start to the day, or venture outside of your usual and perk up with a Thai tea slushie or hojicha blockshake. And for kids or those avoiding caffeine, a zesty ginger lemonade and nostalgic Dole Whip are at the ready.
Prefer a more adult take? Some of the city’s best bars are reimagining classic cocktails in blended form, from frozen negronis to piña coladas and margaritas. Far from basic, these frozen concoctions are layered and intentional, featuring small-batch mezcal, locally made cider and Belizean rum. Some are served in popsicle or snow cone form, and you can even enjoy your Dole Whip spiked.
Here are 25 of our favorite frozen cocktails and non-alcoholic slushies to cool off with in L.A.:
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Bar Flores
Echo Park Cocktails $
If you head to the taco stand on the upstairs patio at Bar Flores, a nightlife staple in Echo Park that started as a pop-up in 2012, you’ll find a “secret” frozen confection amid the menu‘s Mexican bites — the paloma popsicle. At $8, the freeze pop is one of the most affordable alcohol options at the bar and adds a youthful spin to the highball made with tequila, lime juice and grapefruit soda. “A lot of times, Dodgers fans come in and they want something easy to grab when it’s really hot out,” said Danielle Gavalden, an assistant general manager at the bar. Although the treat may be ideal during summer months, the paloma popsicle is sold on the patio year-round.
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Belle's Beach House
Venice Hawaiian $$
(Melody Xu / Los Angeles Times)
Weekends in Venice are constantly abuzz at Belle’s Beach House, a Hawaiian-Japanese restaurant planted along the boardwalk. The cocktail menu has something for everyone, from a lineup of espresso martinis to spirit-forward martinis to refeshing mai tais and margaritas. For $16, the piña colada slushie comes with rum, pineapple, lime and coconut juices and is garnished with a fresh orchid flower reminiscent of Hawaiian leis. Or try the tequila-based Maui Waui slushie for the same price. It features watermelon, mango and lime juices and is topped with aromatic mint leaves.
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Benny Boy Brewing
Lincoln Heights Brewery $$
(B. Justine Jaime / For The Times)
Hidden below the 5 Freeway in Lincoln Heights is this spacious, dog-friendly brewery and cider house from husband and wife Ben Farber and Chelsey Rosetter, who make their beers and ciders with Old World techniques using modern machinery. A weekly rotating frozen cider is offered year-round and uses a blend of Newtown Pippin, Mutsu, Fuji and Jonagold apples for the base, with flavors often inspired by holidays and the beer garden’s packed event lineup, like a watermelon slushie for its annual Watermelon Fest and a blue raspberry option for Dodgers opening day. A blood orange concoction is planned for this Halloween.
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Broad Street Oyster Co.
Malibu Seafood Restaurant $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Few things feel as refreshing as bracingly cold oysters on a hot day unless, of course, you’re pairing them with a frozen piña colada. At the Malibu location of Broad Street Oyster Co., chill out on the shaded wood deck and supplement your lobster rolls and bivalves with the Pirate Piña Cholada ($16): a frozen, tropical tipple made with soju, pineapple juice, cream of coconut and fresh lime, and garnished with a little paper pirate flag. The frozen cocktail became so popular this year that the team added a second, nonalcoholic option, such as a frozen Shirley Temple. The no-ABV drink rotates, but the Pirate Piña Cholada can be found daily — and swirled with the other frozen option.
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Capri Club
Eagle Rock Italian Cocktails $$
It’s impossible to miss the buzzy aperitivo bar on Eagle Rock Boulevard, with guests perpetually spilling out of the wood-paneled bar onto sidewalk tables cluttered with Italian bar snacks — sample a mezze with baby artichoke hearts, tuna-stuffed peppers, roasted butternut squash and more for $26 — and larger plates filled with fried calamari, cured meats and house-made pastas. Both drink and food orders are taken at the bar, and it’s worth staking out a coveted booth or streetside table to enjoy your selections. Alongside Italian-inspired spritzes, sours and shots of fernet is a selection of negronis, including a frozen option for $15. Here it’s made with gin, sweet vermouth, a red bitter blend and a medley of citrus for a tangy, slightly vegetal taste that encourages you to sip slowly. When summer heat waves stretch on for weeks and you need to cool down instantly, it presents as the obvious order.
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Daisy Margarita Bar
Sherman Oaks Mexican $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Find this frozen guacamole margarita ($20) under the “salsa bar” section of the beverage menu alongside cocktails inspired by salsa macha and salsa verde. Sherman Oaks’ Daisy specializes in a range of tequilas and margaritas, some more off the walls than others, but few have garnered as much attention or praise as the frozen concoction inspired by guacamole. The blended drink incorporates fresh avocado with “clearmato” (a house-made clarified clamato), blanco tequila, herb liqueur and fresh lime. Savory though its ingredients may be, the tangy guacamole margarita is somehow creamy, lightly sweet and refreshing. Lest you forget its inspiration, however, this cocktail is garnished with a tortilla chip — dipping encouraged.
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Damian
Downtown L.A. Mexican $$$
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
The brutalist Arts District restaurant from Mexico City chef Enrique Olvera celebrates Mexican flavors with California ingredients, including a tlayuda crowned with lamb barbacoa and squash blossoms and a Caesar salad reimagined as a tostada blanketed in Parmigiano and with glistening anchovies splayed on top. The beverage menu spotlights small-batch mezcal and tequila labels, Mexico-made wine and lesser-known regional distillates like sotol and bacanora. Made from the wild-harvested desert spoon plant that belongs to the asparagus family, sotol is grassy and mineral, with a pleasant earthiness. Try it in Damian’s new cocktail slushie ($22) that also adds kiwi, palo santo cordial, yuzu and anise-flavored honey liqueur for a bright, tangy and zesty finish.
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De La Nonna
Downtown L.A. Italian Restaurant
(B. Justine Jaime / For The Times)
Tart, carbonated and not too sweet, an aperol spritz might be the perfect summertime drink. But the Arts District pizzeria with an additional Big Bear location takes it up a notch by offering the classic Italian cocktail frozen for $16. The food menu features crisp-crusted, seasonally inspired rectangular pizzas and Cal-Italian plates, with a slew of deals to draw diners in, including half-off select bottles of wine every Wednesday and a Nonna pack complete with a Caesar salad, two pizzas and a bottle of wine for $75 Tuesday through Thursday.
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Due Fiori
Long Beach Italian Restaurant $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
It comes as no surprise that the team behind one of Long Beach’s best cocktail bars would introduce something fun to sip at their follow-up restaurant. After launching the wildly popular Baby Gee, Daniel Flores and Gianna Johns opened Due Fiori as part neighborhood Italian restaurant, part wine bar. The all-Italian list constantly rotates, with two variants always available in frozen form. Look for the prosecco-based Arancia ($18), which incorporates orange juice and California-made citrus aperitif, or the Rosso ($18), which combines nebbiolo, lemon, cinnamon and a Californian grapefruit aperitif, both of which pair excellently with the Californian Italian menu and that breezy back patio.
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El Cholo
Harvard Heights Eatery
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times )
The original El Cholo on Western opened just over a century ago and the den-like interior with distressed walls, an arched fireplace, a wall fountain and framed photos and memorabilia hasn’t changed much since. The Mexican American standby has since expanded to additional locations in Santa Monica, downtown and as far as Salt Lake City, and the menu lists the year each dish was created. The cocktail menu is dedicated almost exclusively to margaritas, including a section with fruity blended options. But the most popular order is the frozen coconut margarita ($15.95) that comes rimmed with toasted coconut flakes.
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Good Times at Davey Wayne's
Hollywood Bar/Nightclub $
(Melody Xu / Los Angeles Times)
A ’70s-themed speakeasy in the heart of Hollywood, Good Times at Davey Wayne’s prides itself on its live music calendar packed with bands and DJs — and its vintage snow cone machine. Housed in a camper truck on the bar’s back patio, snow cones are offered a couple hours after opening. The wait is worth it to watch blocks of ice be freshly crushed by the contraption, before the bartender ducks around infusing the ice particles with spirits and syrups. These sticky, quick-to-melt snow cones are priced at $12 each. Simply Beautiful is vodka-based with lemon, watermelon and Combier liquor; Blue Bayou features tequila, blueberry syrup and St. Germain; and Whiskey River includes whiskey, cola syrup and grenadine.
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The Hideaway
Beverly Hills Mexican Steakhouse $$$
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
Skirted away in a Beverly Hills office building, the Hideaway is an apt name for this sprawling restaurant with a chic covered patio and a dim interior featuring arched entryways and plush booths. The menu features crowd-pleasing Mexican American staples such as sizzling chicken and steak fajitas, a tableside Caesar salad, shrimp ceviche and chilaquiles during weekend brunch. The beverage menu puts a focus on margaritas — including a flight and a frozen strawberry margarita that can be ordered by the glass or pitcher — but the trio of popsicle cocktails ($17 each) are a must-order on hot summer days. The drinks are surprisingly complex — the kiwi flavor blends prosecco and lime with the tart fruit; mango is mixed with pineapple, tequila and lime; and strawberry-mint also features gin, prosecco, lemon and Aperol. All of the frozen cocktails come bobbing with popsicles, complete with the stick. For best results, crush up the frozen dessert so that you can suck down the sweet shards of ice with every sip.
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Kassi
Venice Cocktails Bar/Nightclub Mediterranean $$
(Danielle Dorsey / Los Angeles Times)
The hospitality group behind nearby hot spots Belle’s Beach House and Elephante is behind this rooftop destination at Hotel Erwin in Venice. The Grecian-inspired escape features a coastal palette with umbrellas, tables and comfortable couches for wasting away a summer day, all with a clear view of the crashing waves at Venice Beach. The food menu spans shareable mezze, skewers, crispy saganaki and a refreshing watermelon salad topped with whipped feta. The beverage program fits the theme with a Mediterranean gin and tonic packed with fresh herbs and a pomegranate za’atar mule, plus two frozen cocktails for $17 each. Milos comes blended with tequila, aromatic mastiha liqueur, lemon, strawberry and coconut, while Santorini features tequila, melon, aloe, cucumber, mint and lemon. Can’t decide which one to order? Swirl them together.
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Piccalilli
Culver City Southeast Asian $$
(Melody Xu / Los Angeles Times)
Piccalilli chef-owner Macks Collins has an affinity for strong drinks and kitschy tiki. Inspired by the popular Hawaiian POG flavor (passionfruit, orange and guava), this slushie is made with white rum, falernum, angostura bitters, ginger syrup and passionfruit puree. It uses fresh-squeezed orange juice, sourced from his parents’ trees in their Ojai backyard. At last, the drink is topped with Diplomático and garnished with a mint leaf and an orange slice. Order this creation at $16 for a single serving or $22 when served in a larger skull-shaped glass suitable for two — and don’t skimp on the food menu that draws inspiration from Southeast Asian cuisine.
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Shim Sham
Historic Filipinotown Bar/Nightclub $
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
Imagine the best Orange Julius drink of your childhood, now all grown up. The cocktails are always fun at Shim Sham, but the most nostalgic of all is the orange drink swirling away behind the bar. Shim Sham’s take on the mall stalwart involves vodka, oranges and vanilla cream in a blend that’s so deceptively potent, and flavor so sweet and sippable, it can be a bit of a problem. (Down too many, and mind how you behave in the photo booth.) Shim Sham always keeps another frozen cocktail rotating; some nights it might be Irish coffee ($15), others you might find a slushie spritz, but always be sure to order an Orange Julius ($15).
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Si! Mon
Venice Panamanian $$
The lush restaurant from Panamanian chef José Olmedo Carles Rojas successfully transports you to the tropics of Central America with bright and acidic ceviches, banana-leaf-wrapped kanpachi and a truffle-laced pupusa that replaces the typical curtido with bone marrow and marinated shimeji mushrooms. The beverage list follows suit, including a rotating margarita that’s currently spiked with watermelon, fig leaf and culantro and a house martini with pickled lychee. Two frozen cocktails are recent additions to the menu, including Corazon de la Selva, a balanced take on a blended negroni with gin, Mexican bitters, vermouth, piquillo pepper, cinnamon, pineapple, lemon and coconut water, and Calmante, a frozen piña colada with Belizean rum, coconut cream, cacao, mezcal, aged cachaça and sherry. Whether you sit on the patio with a retractable roof that grants views of palm trees swinging overhead or in the dim dining room with wicker light fixtures and string lights, you’ll soon forget that it’s the Venice Boardwalk that’s only blocks away and not a white-sand Caribbean beach.
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Tiki Kai
Hermosa Beach Cocktail Bar $$
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
California has a long history with Dole Whip. The frosty, almost soft-serve-like treat was invented in San José, and in the 1980s the frozen pineapple-and-vanilla dessert became almost synonymous with Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room attraction. But it wasn’t long before local bars and restaurants began offering their own spin on it. In Hermosa Beach, one of L.A.’s best new bars now serves a take on the classic: Tiki Kai’s boozy version costs $18 and arrives in a ceramic coconut mug, garnished with an orchid, and adds a blend of light rums and coconut for an especially tropical experience. A frozen Hawaiian coffee is also on the menu if you’re in need a pick-me-up. Sip a few and, in true Californian fashion, then make your way to the beach that’s just steps away.
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Tiny's Hi-Dive
Sawtelle Bar $
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
There’s a lot to love about Tiny’s. The bar food is substantial and inexpensive, it’s one of the few true Chicago bars in town (complete with Malört) and it’s home to multiple sports fandoms and TV screens for game days. But almost universal among its patrons is a love of its frozen Irish coffee. It’s sweet, chocolatey and frosty, and at $11, it’s also one of the most affordable in town. They pack a surprising punch, but you can take things up a notch by adding an extra shot of Irish whiskey for only $4.
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Non-alcoholic slushies
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ChaTraMue
Chinatown Thai $
Right around the corner from LAX-C, a.k.a. Thai Costco, is ChaTraMue, the cafe from the popular Thai tea brand of the same name. (There is also a second location in Rosemead.) While the menu is packed with refreshing drink options, the star is the deep orange Thai tea slushie ($6.95). Strong tea is brewed and combined with condensed milk, evaporated milk and poured into the slushie machine, which is refilled multiple times a day due to the popularity of the drink. The cup is lined with a cream cheese foam before the Thai tea slush is added to help balance out the flavors. The resulting drink looks like, and tastes like, a Thai tea creamsicle.
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Mewame
West Hollywood Desserts $
Mewame is a charming dessert shop in West Hollywood that specializes in dairy-free bingsu, which they craft by shaving down blocks of frozen coconut or oat milk and fruit. The team also takes these blocks, chucks them into a blender, along with ingredients like matcha powder and blitzes it until it transforms into a silky yet icy smoothie, which Mewame cleverly calls a blockshake. They’re also available in a number of flavors like mango pineapple, chocolate, and the less common-but-just-as-delicious, hojicha, with prices ranging between $11.50 and $13.50.
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Ronnie's Pronto
West Hollywood American $
When your iced matcha latte with a mango cream top isn’t cutting it anymore, head straight to Ronnie’s Pronto in West Hollywood for a matcha freeze. The base is made with premium matcha from the producer Nodoka, sweetened, and then frozen until it hits optimal slushie texture. Each freeze ($11) is topped with a lightly salted cold foam, made from either regular milk or coconut milk, which helps balance out the earthiness. The cold foam is available in two flavors, strawberry and ube. A coffee freeze with cold brew and vanilla is also available topped with a mocha or caramel cold foam. You might have to battle a crowd of shoppers tired from waiting in line for the latest streetwear at Kith next door (which is also owned by Ronnie’s Pronto founder Ronnie Fieg), but the frozen caffeine kick is worth it.
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Sqirl
East Hollywood New American $$
(Betty Hallock / Los Angeles Times)
The frozen kombucha ($13) at Sqirl is like if your favorite childhood slushy from the convenience store went to boarding school abroad and came back grown-up, sophisticated, free of any artificial colorings, but still just as fun. The base is made from kombucha the Sqirl team makes in house with seasonal fruit and tea from Kettl (previous flavors have included blood orange and Bonny melon). It is then frozen in a machine from Spaceman, a company created by former aerospace engineers, where it achieves its luxurious crystalline texture that makes it all too easy to drink.
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Wake and Late
Downtown L.A.
Wake and Late may be best known for their slim but mighty breakfast burritos, but they also make the best frozen coffee in town. The ice caffe ($7.50) comes with organic whole milk, organic half and half, housemade vanilla simple syrup, and freshly pulled espresso are blended together and frozen in a powerful Taylor milkshake machine until it hits a perfect icy consistency. The result is a drink that isn’t overly sweet, with a luxuriously thick texture and a dominant coffee flavor. The team took two months to develop and perfect the recipe and it shows.
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Wax Paper
Elysian Valley Deli $
Wax Paper has built a reputation for being one of the best places for creative sandwiches in town, but they also have an incredible rotating menu of frozen treats. Walk up to the counter at the restaurant’s tiny location in Frogtown and ask for the Dole Whip float ($9), which is a permanent fixture on the menu. A generous swirl of super creamy pineapple soft serve is topped off with their house cooler, which is always made with vanilla beans and whatever fruit is in season. The final touches? A sprinkle of Tajin and a paper umbrella, for the vibes.
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Yuko Kitchen
Mid-Wilshire Restaurant
The team at Yuko’s Kitchen understands that little is more refreshing than a cold glass of lemonade on a hot day, so they took it to the next level by freezing their house-made lemonade ($6.50) for maximum refreshment. Each glass also features thick batons of fresh ginger that give the sweet and tart drink an extra zingy punch of flavor. Frozen mint lemonade ($7) and apple-mint lemonade ($7.50) are also available. There is also the option to add bouncy boba pearls to the frozen lemonade if you’re someone who enjoys maximalist drinks.
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