Maximum Flavour: Mister McCoys Island Ices

rystallised ginger, saffron, mezcal and lavender…these are not your typical gelato ingredients, but for Rory McCoy, of Mister McCoys Island Ices, this is where the fun is and where creativity can run free. Since opening an ice cream parlour and natural wine bar, with his girlfriend, in a quirky old townhouse in Soller four years ago, McCoy has been concocting artisanal gelato with mind-bending flavours that expand your taste buds. Working mainly with local vendors and farmers and clearly passionate about ingredients and taste, “I wanted to train myself to be able to taste just by looking, and I have,” he explains, McCoy has learned how to get the best out of each ingredient, whether orange oil from local Canoneta oranges or the perfect texture and taste of an almond.

Rory McCoy grew up in the restaurant world in North Yorkshire, England, amongst an extended family of creatives and free-thinkers. His great-grandparents and grandparents were in the restaurant business – as well as his parents and uncles, who ran a popular restaurant that was both low-key (his dad liked to wear jeans and Hawaiian shirts), yet served innovative nouvelle cuisine. Rory took it all in – and worked all aspects of the business, from dishwashing to prepping to front of house. He thought about becoming a pastry chef at one point and considered doing proper training, but knew the structure of it all would not be for him.

“I always had a sweet tooth and I loved ice cream as a kid,” he says. “My grandma used to make it and so I learned from her and started to make my own ice cream. One of her recipes I feature at the shop, an old fashioned vanilla that is kind of a pain to make, but worth it.” What also likely appealed to him about making ice cream was breaking down the mystery of something so delicious, to understand the process and trying to make it better. This intuitive curiosity seems to drive him in his exploration of tastes and flavours today.

Photo: Duncan Kendall

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fter a stint of travelling and working internationally, he went to London and set up a couple of restaurants – natural wine and seasonal dishes influenced by Italy, Spain and France. After more than a decade, McCoy was already distancing himself from the businesses and thinking of other plans, when Covid hit. He and his girlfriend (who is Catalan) moved to Spain, just outside of Granada; soon after he was bought out of the restaurants. “For the first time, I had a little bit of money and I knew I needed to do something with it,” he says. His brother convinced them to visit Mallorca, and “when we saw this space,” he explains, “I knew it was right. I just had a good feeling about it.”

Situated near the train station but slightly off the main square, the eclectic space sees a mix of visitors, which is something he was hoping for. “I loved how the restaurants I grew up in had a mix of people and I want to have that here as well,” he says. And that seems to be happening: Elderly Sollerics purchasing kilos of ice cream for a party, expats having natural wine or one of their ice-cream cocktails like the Negroni float – a classic negroni with a scoop of orange sorbet, and scores of international tourists waiting for a scoop or two.

McCoy brings a creative experimentation to his process of perfecting flavour and taste. “I don’t think a lot, I kind of just taste and let things happen, and I kind of get a feeling. The thinking process comes in later, when I want to figure out how to make it work. As a kid, I remember saying to my mom that I wanted to teach myself how to feel rather than think, it was just something I wanted to do; I kind of saw the world differently – watching my family business – observing – seeing what life would be – that kind of mindset has led to what I do here,” he explains.

“I don’t think a lot, I kind of just taste and let things happen, and I kind of get a feeling. The thinking process comes in later, when I want to figure out how to make it work."

Photo: Duncan Kendall

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ngredients such as cardamom, the cinnamon-like spice, is something he always loved. They used to serve cardamom coffee and espresso martinis at his restaurant in London and from there, he veered into the white coffee cardamom; Lavender came from a friend on the island with fields of the herb. When reduced, it gave a buttery, toffee like quality and led to the lavender and dulce de leche; wanting to use figs in a different way and with a love of mezcal, he devised the black fig and mezcal ripple with mascarpone and cream cheese. In addition to local Soller market vendors and farmers, he has been working with Antoine de Beaupre of Huerto del Mar, who is providing unusual ingredients such as kaffir lime leaves, Mexican tarragon, Malaga mangoes and finger limes (which he suspended in oil as part of the fig and mezcal flavour), that heighten the recipe and results.

Mister McCoys Island Ices just closed its fourth season and will reopen again in early March. Rory hopes to bring some new additions to the menu in 2026, but with limited space, that can sometimes be a challenge. “But,” he says, “we have to evolve and change; I want to keep pushing myself.”

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