Ice cream (helado) is pretty big in the Galapagos Islands and Ecuador. One town that is famous for ice cream is Salcedo. It’s a small place not far from Banos in the Cotopaxi Province. You’ll spot funny garbage cans around town and many, many ice cream shops.

In the Galapagos, there are a few places that make some great home made ice cream. Galapagos Deli and Il Giardino on Santa Cruz come to mind.

Magnum ice cream bars and soft serve strawberry/vanilla/chocolate ice cream can be found in some small stores (tiendas) in towns in the Galapagos as well. But, when it comes to a widely distributed ice cream brand you can find around Ecuador and the Galapagos to get an ice cream fix you need to go with Los Coqueiros!

About Los Coqueiros

Started back in the 1970s, these ice cream bars are a great, somewhat healthy, snack. Their slogan is “El Helado de Puro Coco y Frutas Naturales”. This means they’re using fresh Ecuadorian fruit in many of their flavours – Los Coqueiros is truly Ecuadorian.

Made with real cream, these are rich and sweet ice cream bars, not cheap “icy” ice creams. So be prepared for a blast of sweetness no matter which flavor you choose.

Their ice cream bars come in two sizes, the “super” size for adults and a smaller size for children. Funny though, we are rarely able to find any of the small ones in the Galapagos.

We decided to see just how good these treats are by doing a Los Coquieros taste test and sampling all 10 different flavors at the Galakiwi office! It was a tough Friday afternoon!

Our taste testing team was comprised of a few local Galapagueños as well as some residents and visitors with American, Canadian, Swiss and New Zealand backgrounds.

The Coco flavor is the original, core flavor for this brand. So we saved that for last. The other flavors were randomly chosen, with fruit flavors like guanabana and taxo being mixed in with traditional flavors like vanilla and chocolate ice cream.

After a few brain freezes and much discussion, here are the official Galakiwi ratings on all Los Coqueiros helado options from Ecuador.

Taxo Los Coqueiros (Banana Passionfruit)

Mixed results for this banana passionfruit flavor, with ratings from as low as 3 to as high as 8. Nobody chose this as their favorite or least favorite, although Dave was torn between choosing this and Ron Pasas as his least favorite.

Leidy – 8
Sina – 6
Andrea – 7
Dave – 5
Crystal – 3
Tim – 7
Cristhian – 6

Chocolate Los Coqueiros

Sometimes chocolate flavored items can let you down. This is not the case with Los Coqueiros ice cream. Coming from a country that is famous for producing high-quality chocolate, we should have expected the rich, creamy, full flavored ice cream bar that we all enjoyed. If you crave chocolate on a hot day in the Galapagos, this really hits the spot.

Leidy – 7
Sina – 8
Andrea – 10
Dave – 7.5
Crystal – 8
Tim – 8
Cristhian – 10

Mango Los Coqueiros

Mango madness! This is an intensely potent mango flavor for ice cream and it got us talking. Except for Leidy, who only gave it a 5, it was at least a 7/10 for everyone else. If you are a fan of mangoes you will really love it.

Leidy – 5
Sina – 9
Andrea – 8
Dave – 7
Crystal – 7.5
Tim – 8
Cristhian – 8

Naranjillo Los Coqueiros (Little Orange)

Another potent, interesting fruit flavor from Ecuador. It does not taste like oranges, as these “little oranges”, as naranjillo is called, taste different. Not as obscure as taxo, but also not as globally appealing. Leidy was our self-proclaimed naranjillo expert and happily snarfed up all the leftover pieces.

Leidy – 10
Sina – 8
Andrea – 6
Dave – 6
Crystal – 3
Tim – 7

Frutilla Los Coqueiros (Strawberry)

Pink and sweet, this is a more familiar flavor to people who may not be from Ecuador. A well-done strawberry taste, with real fruit mashed into the ice cream bar this was one of only 4 options that everyone rated at least a 7 out of 10. A safe choice!

Leidy – 8
Sina – 9
Andrea – 10
Dave – 9
Crystal – 8
Tim – 7
Zambo – 8

Guanabana Los Coqueiros (Soursop)

Known as soursop in many countries, the fun-sounding guanabana fruit was another “exotic” option for some tasters. It didn’t get top marks from any locals, but did rank higher from some of the foreign background team compared to their taxo and naranjillo ratings. Maybe not the flavor to choose if you only have time for one ice cream – but if you plan to try a few of them, go for it.

Leidy – 7
Sina – 8
Andrea – 7
Dave – 6.5
Crystal – 5

Mora Los Coqueiros (Blackberry)

This invasive species is found in the Galapagos Islands and is a real nuisance to remove, with it’s thorny stalks and fast growing nature. That is too bad, as it is a tasty fruit judging by the ratings of our Galakiwi tasting team, who gave it all 7 and 9 ratings.

Leidy – 7
Sina – 9
Andrea – 9
Dave – 7
Crystal – 7
Tim – 7

Ron Pasas Los Coqueiros (Rum Raisin)

This flavor elicited polar opposite reactions when announced. Some people had their eyes open wide with glee, while others questioned the need to have alcohol in ice cream. Indeed, checking the ingredient list it does list rum as an ingredient, and it is pretty evident when you bite in – wit ha pungent burst of rum taste that tickles your taste buds and nose whiskers. The raisin aspect of things was also called into question by Dave, who simply isn’t a fan of raisins mixed into food. The end result is ratings as low s 2 and as high as 9!

Leidy – 9
Sina – 7
Andrea – 9
Dave – 5
Crystal – 2
Zambo – 7.5

Vanilla Los Coqueiros

A deep yellow color could throw some people off who are used to bright white vanilla ice cream. But if you use pure ingredients, this is the color your vanilla ice cream should be. Despite its purity, this simple flavor did not garner much respect from our taste testers. In the eternal battle of chocolate vs. vanilla, chocolate definitely won on this ice cream day in the Galapagos.

Leidy – 5
Sina – 5
Andrea – 5
Dave – 6
Crystal – 6
Tim – 7

Coco Los Coqueiros

The original! Going into the taste test the question was posed “what do you think will be the best flavor?” and many expected Coco to win. Did it live up to the hype? Well…yes and no. It lived up to expectations with everyone rating it an 8 out of 10 or higher, so it was the overall highest rated flavor. But, there were some surprises along the way, which led to some people choosing other flavors as their favorites. Check the ratings below and read on to see what our favorites were.

Leidy – 8
Sina – 10
Andrea – 10
Dave – 8
Crystal – 8

Top Pick – The Best Los Coqueiros Ice Cream is…

Only 5 taste testers worked hard enough to try every flavour and be able to have a worthy opinion of which Los Coqueiros was best. The overall winner was – Coco!

Leidy – Naranjillo
Sina – Coco
Andrea – Coco
Dave – Frutilla
Crystal – Coco

We’re not 100% sure how Andrea chose her favorite, considering she ranked 3 ice creams a 10/10 and two others 9/10!

Bottom Pick

There was no clear loser on the day, but the simplicity of vanilla lacked appeal to a few tasters, and the ron pasas with its rum, and its raisins, wasn’t the ideal flavor for some either. Vanilla had an average score of 5.67, taxo averaged a 6.00 rating, and ron pasas averaged 6.59.

Leidy – Vanilla
Sina – Vanilla
Andrea – Vanilla
Dave – Ron Pasas
Crystal – Ron Pasas

With our first-ever taste test done, we’re already thinking about what to do next here in the Galapagos. It would be fun to try all of these actual fruits, but we don’t have easy access to a fresh supply of all the fruits in these helados so that would not be practical. Taste tests on a remote Pacific island are a bit more difficult than in big cities!