Bal Harbour Shops Will Host Ice Cream We Love Festival for Charity

Bal Harbour Shops, an open-air luxury retail center with stores such as Gucci, Prada, and Fendi, will host a curated lineup of ice-cream pop-ups this weekend to benefit UM/Jackson Memorial's Holtz Children’s Hospital.

The inaugural event, Ice Cream We Love, will bring together more than a dozen local and national brands, each with a small courtyard booth on the first and second levels of the mall.

Participants include Serendipity, Nanndi, Mr. Kream, Jaxson’s, Quality Meats, HipPop’s, Freddo, Dasher & Crank, Mr. Bing, Fireman Derek’s, Sweetness Bakeshop, Sweet Melody, and Le Zoo.

"Whether you're in fashion, real estate, or making ice cream, it's important to give back to the community," says Thomas McCarthy, a former pastry chef at Zuma who recently opened Dasher & Crank in Wynwood. "As soon as we heard about this event and the major efforts from Bal Harbour Shops, we knew we had to be involved."

The event will offer a variety of unique flavors, though specifics have not been released. A sneak peek, however, reveals Le Zoo will offer a mini version of its banana split, containing chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice creams and a generous scoop of Chantilly cream.

The weekend-long event will honor the Bal Harbour Shops' founder, Stanley Whitman, who spent years supporting Holtz Children’s Hospital. According to organizers, his favorite dessert was ice cream, which inspired the event's theme. All proceeds from ticket sales will go directly to the hospital and its pediatric specialty programs.

Ice Cream We Love. Saturday, January 13, and Sunday, January 14, at Bal Harbour Shops, 9700 Collins Ave., Bal Harbour; 305-585-4483; balharbourshops.com. Tickets cost $15 for children, $35 for adults, and $90 for a family of four via icecreamwelove.com.