IJssalon Hillegersberg: Specialty Coffee in Schiebroek, Rotterdam

Not Just Ice Cream

Walk into IJssalon Hillegersberg on a weekday afternoon and the crowd tells you something immediately: this is a neighbourhood place, not a coffee destination. Families with kids, friends catching up, locals with no particular agenda. The ice cream is the draw for most of them. The coffee, under new ownership since April 2026, is a genuine secondary reason to visit.

Michiel and Pascalle Drijver took over the space and made a deliberate call: partner with Giraffe Coffee Roasters, one of Rotterdam's more respected local roasters, and build a coffee offering that can hold its own alongside the sundaes and pancakes. It's an unusual combination, and it mostly works.

The espresso drinks are made with Giraffe beans, which brings a level of sourcing transparency you wouldn't necessarily expect here. Organic whole milk is the standard, and the milk-based drinks are the obvious order. Nothing on the menu suggests a filter programme is coming anytime soon, and that's fine, the espresso focus is clear and consistent with what the space is built for.

The Matcha Magic Lattes are the other thing worth noting. Ceremonial grade matcha, available warm or iced, in mango, blueberry, vanilla, or strawberry variations. These are not the chalky, sweetener-heavy matcha drinks that turn up in generic café menus. The ceremonial grade sourcing matters here, and the flavoured options are more considered than they sound on paper. The mango version, in particular, has enough brightness to make it a legitimate afternoon drink rather than a dessert substitute.

The food side runs to ice cream, pancakes, sandwiches, and pastries. It's a broad menu for a compact operation, but the kitchen handles the volume without the coffee suffering. The afternoon timing makes sense: this is not a morning espresso stop, it's a mid-afternoon reset.

For anyone calibrating expectations: this is not a dedicated specialty bar. There's no single origin on the filter menu, no seasonal guest roaster, no geek-facing brew bar. What it offers is a Giraffe-sourced espresso programme in a space that is genuinely useful to the people who live nearby, with a matcha menu that punches above the neighbourhood average. That's a reasonable thing to be.