Rue Quizon, who works at Northeastern Toronto helping launch academic programs, says this parlor serves “the caviar of ice cream.”
There are many ice cream parlors in Toronto, but only one that’s worth an hour-long commute.
That’s according to Rue Quizon, who works on Northeastern University’s Toronto campus helping to launch academic programs throughout the university network. A self-described ice cream lover who can eat frozen treats all year round, Quizon doesn’t think twice about the long subway ride to Bar Ape (pronounced a-PAY) in the city’s Corso Italia neighborhood.
“It’s so good that I just make the trip,” Quizon says. “If you want the caviar of ice cream, you go to Bar Ape.”
Quizon takes friends and family who visit from out of town to Bar Ape, enticing them with her mouth-watering memories of spicy mango, espresso, pistachio and creamsicle chocolate.
“They made an ice cream bar that was genmaicha with red bean in it,” Quizon recalls. “Yeah, that was wild. I don’t know how they come up with these flavors.”
Technically a gelato parlor, Bar Ape specializes in soft serve and bars with flavors that change depending on what’s in season. There is usually a daily featured bar flavor, most of which are only made once a year. Soft serve flavors can be twisted in combinations.
Quizon fondly recalls a flavor that appeared only once, and then was gone. A grape that’s local to Ontario combined with hazelnut.
“That one was quite memorable,” she said. “Kind of like P, B and J but better.”
Owned and operated by ice cream makers who also have full-time day jobs, Bar Ape is open in the evenings and afternoons on the weekend. Fans follow their Instagram page to see what the flavors are. There’s a six bar limit per customer on Saturdays.
“It’s the kind of thing where if you know, you know,” Quizon says.
A lot of people know, evidently. Lines curl around the block, but Quizon and her friends have a strategy for that.
“We line up, go get a soft serve first and then as we consume the soft serve, we go back in line,” she says. “By the time that we’re up next, we have finished the soft serve and we move on to the gelato bar, which is equally delicious.”
During the pandemic, Quizon lived in a different part of town that was even further from Bar Ape. But that didn’t slow down her gelato consumption.
“It would be a commute,” she said. “I went by public transit, got ice cream and then took an Uber home so it wouldn’t melt.”