Food & Dining Food Focus5 ice creams to try before summer is overIce cream tips from the prosDana Cree of The Publican, Leigh Omilinsky of Nico Osteria and Rebecca Zuckerman of Seven Lions Chicago offer tips on serving ice cream at home. (Bill Daley / Chicago Tribune)Bill DaleyChicago Tribune

Vanilla and chocolate are go-to ice cream flavors, but this is the time of year to break the norm and order something new. Why? We’re at peak season for so many fruits — and even vegetables — that go beautifully in ice cream, sorbet or sherbet. Here are some to try before summer runs its course:

Corn and blackberry ice cream at Seven Lions Chicago. Corn! Boy, you can taste it in this Loop restaurant’s sweet-corn and blackberry swirl ice cream. No wonder. Sixteen corn cobs are used to make each batch, says Rebecca Zuckerman, executive pastry chef. $7. 130 S. Michigan Ave., 312-880-0130.

Cassis sorbet at The Publican. Black currants can be so sour they “make your eyes pop out,” says Dana Cree, executive pastry chef for The Publican. But her sorbet, enlivened with verjuice (an extra-tart grape juice), has just the right tang. A scoop comes garnished with a waffle cone wedge. $6. 837 W. Fulton Market, 312-733-9555.

Raspberry sherbet at Monteverde. Chef and co-owner Sarah Grueneberg serves the seasonal sherbet two ways — get it with two blueberry-chocolate cookies ($5) or as part of a more complex dessert created by pastry chef Sara Lamb. For $12, a rich chocolate tart topped with a round of toasted meringue comes with a scoop of the smooth, rose-pink sherbet over a mound of crushed raspberries. 1020 W. Madison St., 312-888-3041.

Blueberry gelato Housemade blueberry jam is mixed into the gelato at Nico Osteria. (Bill Daley / Chicago Tribune)Blueberry-crostata gelato at Nico Osteria. Imagine blueberry cobbler as a gelato, and that’s what you get at this Gold Coast restaurant. Pastry chef Leigh Omilinsky makes a cream-cheese gelato and folds in pecans, bits of pastry crust and housemade blueberry jam. The finished product is more tart than sweet, just the way she wants it. $3 a scoop. 1015 N. Rush St., 312-994-7100.

Corn ice cream at Acadia. The ice cream “truck” dessert on the bar menu at this South Loop restaurant comes with three oval scoops of ice cream (corn, lobster and fennel) and a scoop of lime sorbet. All flavors are almost head-spinningly true to form; for the corn, that means the flavor of biting into an ear of sweet corn teamed with the creamy texture and chilly temperature of ice cream. $10. 1639 S. Wabash Ave., 312-360-9500.

wdaley@chicagotribune.comTwitter @billdaley

Source: 5 ice creams to try before summer is over – Chicago Tribune