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Australia’s first fried ice-cream store FRY’D in sweet scoop for Leederville – PerthNow
There’s something nostalgic about deep-fried ice cream.
Since the 1970s, it has been a menu staple at neighbourhood Chinese restaurants — always vanilla, with a simple coating like tempura batter or shredded coconut.
Growing up in Perth, Maria Tong adored the sweet dessert but dreamed of putting a fancier spin on the traditional version.
“My parents always owned Chinese restaurants, and I had wondered why there was only ever vanilla fried ice cream,” she says.
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“When I was about 13, I did a mock business making the balls in all these different flavours using Connoisseur and other supermarket brands.”
After university, Tong revisited her childhood idea and realised there was nothing like it available in Australia.
Two years later and her brand, FRY’D, has exploded in popularity, going from a market marquee to food truck and now a bricks-and-mortar store in Leederville.
“We have a lot of old people come in who say they used to have fried ice cream when they were five, then younger people come in and have no idea what it is,” Tong says.
So for the uninitiated, what does it taste like?
“It’s not like anything else — it’s a gastronomic experience,” Tong says.
“When you eat it, it’s both hot and cold. It’s crispy on the outside like a doughnut and then inside is cold gelato.
“We use Il Gelato, and they customise the flavours for us. Everything is hand made; we bake the sponge, then wrap the ice cream and blast-freeze it.”
Alongside menu staples like Nutella and Oreo, FRY’D regularly introduces one-off flavours such as pandan, Earl Grey and the recent Easter-themed hot cross bun.
To keep up with the brand’s steadily growing following, Tong is already gearing up to open a second store at FOMO Freo by the middle of the year and has plans to franchise around the country.
Safe to say, she has done her family proud.
“When I first did it, my parents said ‘Who is going to go somewhere just for fried ice cream?’ Because even in a Chinese restaurant, it’s just a thing they do, no one really thinks about it too deeply,” Tong says.
“When they were able to see me making sales and people enjoying it, they were so impressed.”
