Butterknife Folk Gelato Cafe - almost heaven

According to some wit, if your arteries are good, enjoy more ice cream; and if they are bad, drink more stout. If you are not sure whether your arteries are good or bad, Butterknife Folk has a Chocolate Guinness ice cream that should cover all the bases.

Butterknife Folk is a modest ice cream cafe along River Valley Road offering handcrafted gelato and sorbets made in small batches. It offers a diverse range of flavours – from classics to edgy creations like Kopi Gao, Chrysanthemum Calamansi and Pearytale Romance.

One of the flavours which caught our attention at Butterknife Folk was the Chocolate Guinness Gelato. We ordered a scoop without hesitation. According to a recent article posted by Virginia Spine Institute, a moderate amount of Guinness Beer has health benefits like healthier heart, better bones and better memory. So with Chocolate Guinness Gelato, we could actually eat ice cream which might improve our heart health and bone strength. Brilliant. As if we needed an excuse to enjoy creamy luscious gelato. Butterknife Folk’s Chocolate Guinness Gelato was simply delicious and there was more than a hint of the rich charred tang of Guinness stout.

We also tried their Strawberries and Cream, Rum & Raisin and Earl Gray & Vanilla. Each scoop was $5 – whether served on a cone or in a cup. The cone was thick but crispy. The gelato was of good quality. All the flavours we tried were delectable and enjoyable but the Chocolate Guinness Gelato was the clear favourite.

Butterknife Folk also serves waffle fingers, cookies and hot and cold beverages. We had their Long Black ($4) and Latte ($4.50), which were good.

We were at Butterknife Folks on a weekend evening. The person attending to us was very friendly and quite passionate in describing the gelato flavours to us. We realised a little later that she was one of the owners of the cafe, and that she had her culinary training in France and spent 9 years in the kitchens of Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore.

The small cosy ice cream cafe is mainly for takeaways and its take home tubs of freshly made gelatos are popular with residents in the neighbourhood. However, there are a few seats at a bar counter at the back of the shop. You can feel quite at home there and help yourself to water and napkins.

There is a limited range of merchandise for sale at Butterknife Folk. It also offers made to order cakes. The folks at Butterknife also create special items and flavours for festivals and red-letter days – such as gelato with hidden chocolate eggs inside for Easter and gelato mooncakes for Mid-Autumn Festival.

Butterknife Folk is a charming welcoming place – a little spot along River Valley Road that brings smiles to the very young as well as the distinguished seniors. It has a good range of interesting gelato and sorbets – from Baileys, Sesame Praline and Tiramisu to Kaya Toast, Mango Lassi and Kelapa. It creates new flavours from time to time so there is always something different to look forward to, even for repeat visits. For the chocolate monster and closet alcoholic among us, a double scoop of Butterknife Folk’s Chocolate Guinness and Rum & Raisin will feel like (to borrow a phrase from John Denver’s song) almost heaven.