- "Voilà!": Burger specialist establishes stylish ice cream parlor in Cape Town
No Summer Without a Scoop. Since she was a kid, Lena Soennichsen, a native of Hamburg, perceived the success of her vacation days through the amount of ice cream she consumed. Two scoops were good, three were excellent. Fast forward to her 45th year as a resident of Blankenese, she's turned her favorite dessert into a thriving career. She established an fashionable ice cream parlor in the Cape Town tourist hub, a popular destination for Germans and thousands of other travelers annually.
Why Cape Town? Soennichsen's professional trips often led her to the southern tip of South Africa while she worked as a communications manager for a global accommodation booking platform. Enamored by the city's renowned quality of life and exceptional culinary scene, she yearned to reside there longer. A casual joke - "I'll open an ice cream shop" - transformed into a tangible idea that Soennichsen meticulously pursued.
Soennichsen realized her dream of owning an ice cream parlor
She spent a summer working in an ice cream shop in Berlin, followed by a course at Koch's Ice Cream School in Werl am Rhein. In February, she discovered a prime retail space at the heart of Cape Town's city center, and decided to turn her dream into a reality. "I absolutely adore the product and everything it encapsulates," she says. Ice cream, in her view, is a small dose of happiness, an everyday luxury that evokes memories of childhood, holidays, and summer.
The shop welcomed its first customers on its opening day. "My wife and I are big ice cream fans. As soon as we read about the ice cream shop on Instagram, we hopped into the car immediately," says Brent Smith, a resident of Cape Town. "There are flavors here I haven't encountered anywhere else."
Blueberry-Mascarpone, Marzipan-Pear, or even Gin-Tonic Ice Cream
The unique and handcrafted ice cream flavors at "Tadaa!" utilize only natural ingredients. Instead of mint oil or artificial flavorings, they use fresh mint. Behind the counter, flavors like licorice-white chocolate, blueberry-mascarpone, marzipan-pear, rice pudding with cherries, or basil captivate your senses. For adults, there's also an array of alcoholic flavors like Gin Tonic. Future plans include a wine-based flavor.
After a exhausting week of work, Lena Soennichsen decided to take a day off and visit her ice cream shop in Cape Town. The sight of the blueberry-Mascarpone flavor, a specialty of her shop, brought her joy and reminded her of the hard work and passion that led to her day off enjoying her own creation.
During her vacation in Germany, Lena Soennichsen enjoyed her day off indulging in ice cream from various shops, seeking inspiration for her future ice cream parlor in Cape Town.
