How $23 ice cream became LA’s latest hypebeast obsession

This ice cream often sells out in minutes, in limited drops every week — just like the exclusive streetwear merchandise at Supreme. 

I visited Henry’s Secret Ice Cream in West Hollywood on drop day: Wednesday at 12 p.m. About 1,000 pints of Chef Brad’s mint chip and mocha almond ripple were purchased for $21–22 each, within five minutes. 

Each week, Henry’s sells around 2,000 pints of ice cream, priced between $18–23. 

And while it’s expensive for ice cream, it’s cheap compared to the typical product coveted by hypebeasts. 

In Los Angeles, a market saturated with independent artisanal frozen dessert brands, Henry’s Secret Ice Cream has managed to cut through the noise with its premium fresh ingredients, Chef Bradley Ray’s fine dining culinary background and its rollout strategy inspired by hypebeast culture. 

“When I wrote Brad the strategy for the business, it was like, ‘We should be the Supreme of ice cream, right?’” Henry’s Secret Ice Cream Co-Owner Lawrence Longo said. “So with a brand-new brand, you want to build the audience first, and then you can open up a store when you have the demand, and we didn’t think it was going to happen this fast at this rate.”

The goal is to open brick-and-mortar stores where anyone can get ice cream whenever they want. 

But, for now, the team is small, everything is done by hand and Instagram comments are filled with people lamenting they weren’t able to nab a pint in time. 

With all the hype and the steep price, expectations are running high when it comes to quality. 

And Henry’s Secret Ice Cream delivers. 

I tried seven different flavors, and while I personally wouldn’t pay about $20 for every single one of them, a few really blew me away. After all, everyone’s palate is different. 

I ate half a pint of the orange vanilla fro-yo with summer berries in one sitting; it’s tart and creamy with bursts of tangy flavor from the orange zest and berry swirl. (Chef Brad, if you’re reading this, please bring it back!) 

The earl grey with plum and lychee is subtle and complex, with floral and fruity flavor notes. 

And finally, the coffee with cinnamon and cacao nibs is earthy, rich and infused with the subtle spice of cinnamon. 

The flavors are created using natural ingredients, instead of pre-made extracts and pastes. For example, fruits are purchased at the farmer’s market. 

“I’m buying like $3,000 worth of strawberries at a time,” Ray said. “If it’s not the most aromatic and strong-flavored fruit, it won’t shine on the ice cream.” 

Or take mint-chocolate chip ice cream for example. 

“We use a 59% chocolate from Cordillera, and we use that because it doesn’t get too waxy when it’s cold, but it still has a nice dark chocolate flavor,” Ray said. “And then for the base, we infuse it with peppermint tea … and we take fresh mint and blanch it and puree it in it to make it green.” 

Ray’s approach to making ice cream comes from his fine dining background. 

Previously, he was pastry sous chef at Eleven Madison Park in New York, which has three Michelin stars.  In LA, he became known for his ice cream as chef de cuisine and executive pastry chef at Antico Nuovo. 

But life took a turn that Ray called “very humbling” — when he became sober — before he was ready for a venture like Henry’s Secret Ice Cream. 

A couple years before, he had received a phone call from restaurant entrepreneur Lawrence Longo — owner of Irv’s Burgers, Prince Street Pizza and Bar Next Door — to build an ice cream brand together. 

Longo’s existing ice cream company, Hall Pass, wasn’t doing so well, so he called the man behind his favorite ice cream at Antico Nuovo. But Ray didn’t answer the call. 

“He ghosted me for almost two years,” Longo recalled. 

Ray admitted: “I had a bit of an ego and just, you know, young chef mentality, right? I didn’t think that the projects he had going on had any interest to what I was doing in my career at the time, I guess.”

Later, however, Ray grew past his ego when he was working as a private chef and also selling his homemade ice cream out of the back of his truck. Each week for three or four weeks, Ray would sell out of around 80 pints of a different flavor. 

“I would meet people at the Vons in Arcadia,” Ray said. “It was like an ice cream drug deal. My Instagram for a while was like, ‘Meet me at the Vons. I’ll be in the black Audi.’”

After that mini venture, Ray finally called Longo back. 

Henry’s Secret Ice Cream pays tribute to Chef Brad’s late colleague and best friend, Henry, who passed away from cancer in 2022.

“When I think of ice cream, I think of him because when we worked together, that’s something that we were always working on together,” Ray said. “We were always developing different flavors for the menu. I miss him all the time.”

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