Husband-and-wife duo Moe Kamal and Maria Oveysi are the co-owners of Kinrose Creamery, an ice cream pop-up that blends Kamal’s Egyptian background with Oveysi’s Persian roots.

“We’re tapping into a lot of the recipes that we grew up on,” Kamal said. “We want to capture some of these flavors into a classic delicious American ice cream scoop.”

In addition to drawing upon ice cream flavors from their childhoods, the name Kinrose comes from Cafe Rose, the restaurant Oveysi’s family used to own that served saffron ice cream. 

Playing on that, some of Kinrose’s most popular flavors include saffron pistachio and rose and sour cherry with pashmak, Persian cotton candy. Another signature dish is their Knafeh flavored ice cream, which transforms the classic Egyptian dessert made from shredded filo, sweet cheese and rose water syrup into one delicious serving. They also plan to add special flavors for Ramadan and Nowruz (Persian New Year).

Kinrose Creamery seamlessly weaves these flavors and ingredients into traditional American recipes, such as mint chocolate chip ice cream. Their take, called the Egyptian mint chip, adds a twist to the American classic.

“We’ve altered the texture a little bit. It’s a little bit more stretchy, something that’s very common in desserts over in Egypt. It adds a little more texture dimension, but also upholds a classic recipe.” Kamal said.

Though Kinrose’s menu has Middle Eastern roots, Kamal said customers of Latin and Asian heritage have tried their ice cream and said they were reminded of home. 

“We have different walks of life that come in, try our ice cream, and they say, ‘Oh, this reminds them of this, this reminds them of their childhood.’ There’s definitely a nostalgic factor to some of the recipes that we’ve created. And that’s done on purpose.” Kamal said.

By working at Kinrose and Smorgasburg, Kamal realized that mixing cuisines brings people together, and that people have more in common across cultures than they may think.

“The idea is to highlight connectivity, how culturally, a lot of us are very, very similar.” Kamal added.