Taiwan’s growth as a dining destination shows no signs of slowing, as evidenced by the island’s latest Michelin Guide.

Ten new establishments received stars during the 2024 edition, bringing the total number of Michelin-starred restaurants on the island to 49.

But one of them particularly stands out.

Minimal, in the city of Taichung, is the first and only ice cream parlor in the world to receive a Michelin star.

Located in an alley off the city’s tree-lined Calligraphy Greenway, its spartan gray and dark charcoal exterior makes it look more like a Nordic architectural firm than a dessert shop.

The two-story venue has both a takeaway outlet and a dining section offering a seven-course tasting menu.

“Focusing on gelato and ice cream, the restaurant skillfully layers flavors and textures through temperature variations and creative combinations, using Taiwan’s unique local ingredients,” the Michelin Guide’s Minimal document states.

“The careful flavors, delicacy and mature, skillful techniques impressed us all and reached a higher level, warranting a Michelin star.”

A childhood obsession with ice cream

Arvin Wan, the soft-spoken founder of Minimal, has been obsessed with ice cream since he was a child.

“My family had a double door refrigerator with an ice maker installed. I ate ice cubes every day,” he recalls.

Fascinated by the thrilling sensation of an ice cube hitting his tongue, the slight sweetness of filtered water revealing itself as it melted, young Wan began experimenting by putting different foods in the freezer.

It was only years later that he would turn his passion into his profession.

“I grew up in a single-parent household,” says Wan.

“After graduating from culinary school, I worked as a chef when my mother was battling cancer. The two shifts in the kitchen involved very long working hours. Every morning I got to see my mother for a little while before I went to work, and she was already asleep when I got home.

“Before she passed away, I didn’t spend much time with her. (After that) I thought a lot: if I continued on my current path, I would not have time for the people I care about in the future.

Arvin Wan, the founder of Minimal, has been obsessed with ice cream since he was a child. (MINIMAL via CNN Newsource)

So he left his job in the kitchen to return to something that brought him joy as a child. In 2014, he started working in an ice cream parlor.

It was a short experience. In 2016, Wan accepted his friends’ invitation to co-found Sur-, a contemporary Taiwanese restaurant in Taichung which earned its first Michelin star in 2021.

Wan worked as the restaurant’s pastry chef, but left the restaurant in 2019 to return to his true passion: ice cream.

“Desserts are often not the most important part of a restaurant meal,” he says. “They are more like an ending, a second act.

“I really only like ice cream. I don’t feel the same way about other desserts. I just wanted to make ice cream, but that’s not possible from a restaurant perspective: you can’t just serve ice cream for dessert all year round.

The restaurant experience gave Wan some much-needed clarity. One thing was certain: he needed to build his own ice cream shop, a move his colleagues at Surfully supported.

A frozen tasting menu

In 2021, Minimal opens its doors.

The name refers to the nominal number of elements in ice cream – from sugars to proteins – that create its creamy texture, as well as its aesthetic style.

“Minimalist design can look very simple, but it is extremely complex if you understand it,” says Wan.

“Similar to ice cream, it goes through a very complex calculation and planning process to achieve such a state and taste.”

On the ground floor there is a take-out ice cream parlor offering six whimsical flavors that are continually renewed. Recent options include biluochun (a type of green tea) with sugarcane and an herb called Angelica morii, as well as pine needles with camellia seed oil and Taiwanese green herbs.

The 20-seat restaurant on the second floor serves a seven-course set menu that plays with foods at different temperatures, mostly subzero. The structure of the menu changes little throughout the year but the ingredients and themes change according to the seasons.

Each dish is named after the temperature at which it is served, and the current menu begins with a half-melted starter, the Loquat/Pear at 0°C (32 Fahrenheit). Then, guests will have the only hot dish of the meal: a rice ball sandwiched between two crispy pancakes, titled Rice/Edamame at 180°C.

The experience continues with the Wild Ginger Flowers/Sake ice lolly -40°C, the Whiskey/Pineapple/Magnolia crushed ice dish -5°C, the Snakeweed/Perilla/Anise ice cream/gelato dish -12°C then the fresh -196°C Strawberry/Roselle/Cream, a dish of liquid nitrogen/ice crystals.

To conclude the meal, a pastry dessert at 40°C is served with longan/osmanthus ice cream.

The Challenges of Keeping Things Fresh

Creating these unique dishes and running an ice cream-themed “restaurant” takes a lot of planning and experimentation. There’s a lot more to it than just churning ingredients in a Pacojet ice cream maker.

“Most people are less familiar with subzero temperatures and think they are all the same. I hope to find a way to understand the differences,” says Wan.

The -40°C popsicle, for example, has a crunchy texture that melts much more slowly than normal ice cream and dissipates like a piece of fluffy cotton candy when eaten. (Ice cubes in home freezers are typically cooled to -18 Celsius.) To create this sensation, Wan essentially had to find a way to inject more air into the lollipop.

“I had to make the mixture a little thicker so it could coagulate the air bubbles,” he explains. “Then, at the same time, I had to create a valve, so the gas could go into the liquid and not come out until it was frozen.”

Wan often experiments with his ideas at different temperatures when writing his menu. To achieve this, Minimal’s kitchen is equipped with numerous refrigerators, with various settings. Some are slightly colder than serving temperatures, giving his team time to prepare and explain the dish to guests before enjoying it.

Getting tastes and smells just right can also be a challenge.

“Most ice cream doesn’t have much flavor because the flavor is very inactive below freezing,” he says.

“To overcome this, I need to complement it with other ingredients to create a more complex nose and taste that echoes the dessert theme.”

For example, he adds mint and Angelica morii to his biluochun green tea ice cream, hoping that the extra layers of herbaceous tastes will compensate for the diminished flavor of the green tea.

Although he has become a connoisseur, Wan says he is far from picky when it comes to ice cream.

“I still eat ice cream almost every day. Most of the time I eat really cheap frozen treats like qing bing (a retro dessert made with water and banana flavoring served as shaved ice or as a popsicle). It’s a no-brainer for me,” says Wan.

Growing up, the Minimal founder says his mother encouraged him to follow his passions instead of focusing on financial success, and he hopes to help others find happiness through his dishes.

“When we were young, most of us loved to eat frozen desserts. As we get older, the prospect of eating ice cream is much less exciting – the ice cream itself hasn’t changed, but the feeling about it has changed – it’s no longer new and special,” says- he.

“I hope that with Minimal, adults can rediscover the joy of eating ice cream, as if it were their first ice cream experience.”