When you ask the owner of an ice cream shop about their favourite flavour, you expect a glint of excitement; maybe even a long list of must-try scoops. What you don’t expect is: “I’m actually not that passionate about ice cream. It’s not even my favourite dessert.” And yet, that was exactly the answer I got from Mina Creamery’s co-founder, Anant Singh. I might've been surprised had I not known that nothing at Abu Dhabi’s Mina Creamery is expected. Not even the flavours each week. Orange Blossom Baklava. Blueberry Earl Grey. Salted Saffron Halwa Swirl. Flavours that could have only been dreamt up by a mind perpetually preoccupied with dairy. And fruit. And tea. Or so I initially thought. As it turns out, Anant fell into the ice cream business completely by chance. It all started as a senior-year dorm experiment at NYU Abu Dhabi—buying a small ice cream machine and churning out date ice cream for friends at parties. Then, somewhere between Anant’s casual batches and positive campus-wide reactions, the idea slowly evolved into a dream to build his own chaotic version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Only instead of chocolate, Anant would sell ice cream. And instead of settling down in a cold American town, he would do it in Abu Dhabi. But it wasn’t until he met Rihab, who would become the other half of the story, that Anant’s ice cream idea started finding its legs in reality. A self-proclaimed dessert person, Rihab had already been documenting her own ice cream experiments through her page: The Ice Cream Diaries. They met in Dubai, and quickly realised that scooping wasn’t just a shared interest, it was something they could actually build. For Anant, the pull wasn’t necessarily the ice cream itself, as he’s more than happy to remind me, but “everything around it like the brand, the space, the storytelling.” Ice cream just happened to be the medium—flexible, a little unpredictable, and open to reinterpretation, especially in a region where flavour can carry more meaning than expected. And so, Mina Creamery was born as an online-only operation, delivering across the UAE—an ambitious move, considering the climate. Each order came packed with dry ice, a practical workaround that made the whole thing possible. And if you’ve ever ordered from them, you’ll remember the packaging: block prints, soft textiles and so many stickers, all carefully put together into boxes that felt like personalised gifts. At the same time, pop-ups became an extension of the brand. “We thought of them as low-commitment, high-experimentation spaces where we could meet people in person and test out limited flavours.” Finally, after thousands of scoops, Anant and Rihab opened a physical store, setting up in Abu Dhabi’s Miza neighbourhood, right next to Mina Port, a sort of manifestation that came to life. For Anant and Rihab, Mina Creamery was never just about ice cream; it was also about being part of what Abu Dhabi's Mina area was becoming, growing alongside it rather than arriving after the fact. Inside their brand-new space of playful textures and colourful trinkets, they brought in their iconic block print. And what’s fascinating about it is how people perceive it differently: some visitors instantly recognise the pattern as inspired by Indian textiles, while others, particularly Palestinian visitors, feel certain the print is Palestinian. It's an interesting interplay of perception, how a single design can evoke multiple cultural references, adding even more layers to a city that seemingly has them all. That very same philosophy of cultural interplay, of never being just one thing, found its way into the creamery’s flavours—from Gahwa Stracciatella and Ying Yang Brownies to Karak Chai with Toasted Biscuits. “Our ice cream is, in many ways, a climate check. It responds to the weather, to cultural events, to what people are feeling.” Sometimes they’ll experiment with specific regional ingredients: olive oil, dates, saffron. Other times, when people really need it, they’ll “turn a nostalgic dessert, something people already know and love, into ice cream.” Like when the creamery opened after Ramadan 2026, at the height of the regional conflict, people weren’t feeling their best. So Mina Creamery decided to make comforting flavours like New York Cheesecake. Similarly, when it was April Fool's, the creamery’s lineup shifted to match that energy. “Sometimes we feel a lot more experimental and crazy,” Anant says, “and we create flavours like Rainwater Sorbet because we want to make people laugh.” (It wasn’t actually rainwater—it was lemon.) Seasonality plays a role too. “We only make mulberry and chiku ice cream when the fruit is in season. For one week a year, we manage to get our hands on it, churn it, and then it’s gone.” Mango is another popular example. When it’s in season, it becomes a global conversation starter, with every culture defending its opinion on who does it best. “You talk to an Egyptian family, a Pakistani family—they’ll each swear theirs is superior. Ice cream lets us have that conversation, connect through shared experiences, and introduce people to flavours and traditions they might not know.” The more you look at Mina Creamery’s roster of flavours, the more you understand that every flavour reflects not only the ingredients within it but the community around it. And that community always shows up: friends and regulars often scoop alongside the team, offering feedback, sharing stories, and turning the small, block-printed space into a hub where ice cream is made for conversation and experimentation. Or, as Anant puts it: “a community space that just so happens to make high-quality, locally sourced ice cream.” He pauses, and adds: “Ask me tomorrow and I might say something different.”