Los Angeles · ice cream
Mashti Malone's
Forty-six years of one Iranian family's bastani, still in the same Hollywood strip mall, still hand-describing its ingredients to customers, and explicitly named by the New York Times as a Tehran postcard inside Los Angeles. It is the strongest single case in the city for a distinctive, specialist, longstanding ice-cream identity.
What to order
Rosewater Saffron, or the 'Mashti' ice cream sandwich — saffron ice cream studded with pistachios between housemade wafers (FoodGPS, 2008/2023)
What we know
- Founded 1980 by Mashti Shirvani, an Iranian immigrant whose family had run an ice-cream shop in Bushehr, Iran, before he emigrated after the 1979 revolution (Vice/MUNCHIES, 2016)
- Signature flavours are saffron, rosewater, faloodeh (rosewater sorbet marbled with rice noodles), sour cherry faloodeh and pomegranate sorbet — a full Persian repertoire rather than a single novelty flavour (FoodGPS, 2008/2023; Vice, 2016)
- Shirvani describes personally tasting every new flavour and sourcing organic French lavender because 'I am a chef, so for me it is important to use high-quality products' (Vice, 2016, direct quote)
- The shop's name and four-leaf-clover signage are an accident of poverty — Shirvani could only afford to change 'Mugsy' to 'Mashti' on the existing Mugsy Malone sign when he bought the business in 1980 (Vice, 2016; FoodGPS, 2008/2023)
- Now a three-generation family operation, with brother Matt and Shirvani's daughter both involved (Vice, 2016)
- Status
- open
- Address
- 1525 N La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90028
- Maker
- Mashti Shirvani, founder, with his brother Mehdi Shirvani
- Opened
- 1980
- Website
- mashtimalones.com/
- Last checked
- 2026-08-21
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