Just Open: soft serve with a salty twist at Aqua S Ice Cream Parlor

Ever wanted to eat a cloud in which a fairy princess might live? Thanks to the Aqua S Ice Cream Parlor now you can.

The Regent Place ice-creamery in the Sydney CBD sells an $8 cone filled with sea salt-flavoured soft serve and dressed with fairy floss, sweet popcorn, popping candy and a grilled marshmallow. It's as delicious as it is ridiculous.

"We choose sea salt as an ingredient because we thought it was adventurous and innovative," Aqua S co-owner Jennifer Lam says. "It's nothing like salted caramel. Some people think it's a bit weird, but they really like it once they try it."

The salty soft serve is, indeed, strangely tasty and a good foil to its sweet garnishes (pro tip: don't eat the fairy floss first; it's not just there to look pretty but also to capture errant ice-cream drips).

Aqua S is a soft-serve specialist with three flavours on tap. The sea salt number is permanent but the other two varieties change fortnightly. Biscotti and lemon tea are currently on the menu. The lemon tea flavour is an absolute zinger and if it tastes as though a lot of tea bags have been used to make it, that is because, according to Lam, there have.

All flavours are available as single or mixed scoops, with or without candy toppings.

The cone that looks like a cloud doesn't have an official name (its working title is "all you can eat"). Aqua S is running a competition for customers to name the cone via Instagram and the prize is, well, free ice-cream.

"We needed a great name for the soft serve and we thought our customers were the best people to ask," Lam says. "I've seen people calling it 'heaven in a cone' and 'cloud nine'. I'd like something involving fantasy or wonderland. The cone really is quite dreamlike."

We think "fairy pyramid", "ocean fantasy" or "magic candy mountain" would all work just fine.

Shop 27, level 10, 501 George Street, Sydney, Sun-Wed midday-10pm, Thu-Sat midday-10.30pm.