Qualla: Heladeria Coromoto

Heladeria Coromoto: Introduction

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Reindertot from Caracas, Venezuela, CC BY 2.0. Trout ice cream. Garlic ice cream. Something called "Viagra Hope." At a one-story shop across from a church in Merida, Venezuela, a handwritten board lists dozens of flavors that sound more like dares than desserts. Heladeria Coromoto has offered over 860 flavors since it opened in 1980, though on any given day, only 60 to 75 are available -- the selection shifts with the weather, the season, and the whims of the kitchen. The shop earned a Guinness World Record for the most ice cream flavors offered at a single location, a title it held until 2011 when a Colorado creamery edged past it with 985. But numbers alone do not explain why Lonely Planet calls Coromoto one of the most famous ice cream parlors in South America, or why Frommer's lists it among Merida's chief tourist draws. The answer starts with a Portuguese immigrant who believed ice cream could be made from almost anything.

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Image: Reindertot from Caracas, Venezuela | CC BY 2.0

Heladeria Coromoto: From Lisbon to the Andes

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit StefaniCM, CC BY-SA 3.0. Manuel da Silva Oliveira left Portugal and settled in Merida, a university city nestled at 1,600 meters in the Venezuelan Andes. He learned the ice cream trade at established firms before deciding to open his own shop. Where conventional ice cream makers saw limits, Oliveira saw ...

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Image: StefaniCM | CC BY-SA 3.0

Heladeria Coromoto: The Flavor Catalog

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ambar Vegas, CC BY-SA 3.0. The 860-flavor list reads like an inventory of a very confused grocery store. Conventional offerings like chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry anchor the menu, but they share space with corn, black beans, beer, rose petals, and spaghetti with cheese. Some flavors are seasonal, tied...

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Image: Ambar Vegas | CC BY-SA 3.0

Heladeria Coromoto: A Record and a Rival

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Claire Taylor from Cyprus, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Guinness World Record arrived in 1996, when the organization certified Coromoto's 860 flavors as the most offered by any single ice cream parlor on Earth. The record held for fifteen years, giving the shop international press coverage and a steady stream of tourists who arriv...

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Image: Claire Taylor from Cyprus | CC BY-SA 2.0

Heladeria Coromoto: A Scoop in the Mountains

Fri, 06 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit JoséMa Orsini from Caracas, Venezuela, CC BY-SA 2.0. Merida is not an obvious place for an ice cream empire. The city sits in a narrow valley between two Andean ridges, the Sierra Nevada de Merida and the Sierra de la Culata, at an altitude where evenings turn cool year-round. But the climate is part of the charm -- the mountain ai...

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Image: JoséMa Orsini from Caracas, Venezuela | CC BY-SA 2.0