Isaka, the coffeshop with unusual fried ice cream scoops

Fried ice cream? Yes, you read that right. And no, it's not a mistake on our part. In fact, it's a rather unusual, ultra-original concept that's appearing for the very first time in the Marais district. Just a stone's throw from the Palais Royal gardens, in the very heart of the 1st arrondissement, Romain and Daniela opened Isaka, a coffeeshop inspired by Asia, barely a month ago, to take your taste buds to the other side of the world, without even leaving Paris.

• To be read
• Tips for the week of April 22 - 28, 2024 in Paris: free or inexpensive outings
• What to do in Paris and the Ile-de-France region in April 2024? Our good plans and ideas to discover
• In less than 100 days, Paris will unite the world! A historic chapter, to be written together

Both restaurateurs by profession, Romain and Daniela have been regular visitors to the neighborhood for almost twenty years: for seven years, they ran their own restaurant, Le Richelieu, just a few hundred meters fromIsaka. Then came the health crisis. So, for the past two years, they have been working on a secret project to create Isaka, a contraction of their daughters' names, Isaure and Camille.

Pastel pink walls, a cute logo and a kawaii, almost regressive decor: as soon as you walk through the door, you're plunged straight back into childhood, and that's the goal. "Ice cream is particularly associated with childhood," explains Daniela, who has made the product her new profession, graduating with a CAP glacier. With her partner Romain - at work, as in life - they dug deep, studied and worked hard to come up with a concept as unusual as it is surprising, with a menu that brings together the specialties, flavors and aromas of Asia. At Isaka, you won't be surprised to find the continent's "classic" flavors: coconut, passion fruit, lychee, mango, banana or, more original, white rabbit (a typical Asian sweet), peanut, pandan (a plant with a slight vanilla taste), black sesame, black tea with milk or milo (the equivalent of Nesquik over there).

The house staple is without doubt the fried ice cream, a scoop of homemade ice cream, breaded in panko (Japanese sandwich bread), passed for a minute - not a second longer - in a boiling oil bath, then topped with whipped cream, salted butter caramel, homemade toppings... Depending on the recipe. If at first glance you don't dare, the combination of fried food and ice cream is atypical, to say the least: the breading is lighter than you'd expect, the scoop of ice cream is still quite firm inside, and the dessert doesn't have the greasy or sickening taste (common to fried foods) that you might expect.

Fried ice cream or not, Isaka 's is where we tasted the truly excellent mochi, made to order à la minute with a large, round scoop of ice cream, rolled by Daniela in a sheet of rice dough at room temperature: the combo is unbeatable, the sorbets and homemade ice creams are to die for, and the combination, demonic (we weigh our words.). For gourmets who prefer not to take risks, Isaka also serves traditional 1, 2 or 3 scoop ice creams, in cones or pots. Or, to warm you up in the middle of winter, the menu offers a number of hot beverages in incredible colors, such as the Ube latte coco, which contains ube, a purple yam grown in the Philippines, which gives the drink a magnificent mauve color, or the Thai milk latte, colored "orange golden hour", due to the Thai tea used in the drink. Fresh versions of these drinks are also available, to survive the summer heat, with milkshakes, coffees and latte frappés. In short, this is the café where you dream of having a really good snack, summer or winter, whether you're passing through the neighborhood or after a stroll through the Colonnes de Buren at the Palais Royal.