|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Marcel Khorsand is taking his dreams and turning them into reality – literally.
The Los Gatos native recently debuted his dessert shop and cafe Petals Creamery in Los Gatos featuring all original creations, including many that he dreamt about.
“I’ll try to wake up immediately and just take some brief notes on what I had in my mind,” he said. “And then usually it takes me about a week to realize what I can actually do with it, and then within a month, I start doing trials on it.”
There’s nothing basic about the ice cream flavors Khorsand is churning up. Find flavors like rose yuzu lemonade with scratch-made yuzu molasses or biscotti almond torte with toasted almonds, imported Italian anise biscotti and blueberries. Even the classic flavors have twists on them – chocolate ice cream is infused with cardamom and crunchy cocoa nibs, and mint chip ice cream is made from handmade pistachio butter and slivered pistachios.
Khorsand, along with his business partner and childhood friend Nathan Gaudreau, opened Petals Creamery May 17, offering handcrafted ice cream, desserts, coffee, tea and specialty drinks in a Parisian-inspired atmosphere. With 12 ice cream flavors to choose from, 10 housemade toppings and an abundant selection of baked goods created by Khorsand, the owners hope their creamery makes you feel like you’re a guest in their home.
“In Persain culture, when somebody comes to your home, they are the most important person in your home,” Gaudreau said. “You treat them the best. You give them everything. You constantly feed them, you constantly give them tea. And we want it to be like that.”
Gaudreau and Khorsand both grew up locally, with Gaudreau graduating from Saratoga High School and Khorsand from Leigh High School in San Jose. Gaudreau recalled that in 2010 he posted to Facebook saying he would love to open a dessert or ice cream shop one day, “because I just love ice cream, and I love desserts,” he said, and Khorsand commented that he’d also want to do that some day. In 2021, the friends found the perfect space to open their creamery.
“It was like, ‘This is kind of a half-baked idea right now, but let’s do it. If we’re going to do it, now is the time to do it, get in on a good location and then just go full-speed into it,’” Gaudreau said.
Khorsand previously worked in tech, leaving his career to pursue his passion for culinary. He moved to France for five months, “and by the time I got back, I just knew that my life had to be in food,” he said. “It had to be introducing my culture’s food and my specific fusion style of cooking, and that’s what I needed to do for the rest of my life.”
He started a catering company and later decided to go full time creating Petals Creamery, named after the abundance of floral ingredients, including saffron and rose, present in Khorsand’s ice cream and baked goods.
With Khorsand being fully Persian and Gaudreau half Persian, some of the ice cream, desserts and drinks at Petals Creamery feature Persian flavors, but the goal is not for the business to be branded as Persian-influenced.
“Our sensibility and our flavors that we grew up with are Persian, so that was a starting point for us,” Gaudreau said. “How can we take these traditional flavors that have always been around and twist them up a notch and really just do it differently? But that’s not where we want it to stop.”
In addition to Persian-influenced ice creams like the akbar mashti with saffron, rosewater and slivered pistachios, Petals Creamery also offers a wide variety of non-Persian flavors, including its orange blossom creamsicle made with pieces of vanilla clotted cream, Marcona milk made with Marcona almonds, Valencia orange zest and nougat, and London fog, made with Earl Grey tea.
“I have a big sweet tooth, so I love being able to think about a flavor,” Gaudreau said. “And I tell Marcel, and he goes and he creates it.…I just happened to like London fog, the drink. And I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if this was an ice cream flavor?’ Next thing you know, it’s one of our most popular flavors right now.”
Patrons of Petals Creamery can choose from more than a cup or cone – ice cream sandwiches can be constructed on tahdig, lightly sweetened crispy rice cakes, and ice cream scoops can be piled into phyllo bowls. Toppings include chocolate sauce made with nonalcoholic Guinness beer, crumbled sohan (saffron brittle), toasted Marcona almonds, bee pollen from Carmel-by-the Sea and more ($1.50-$2 per topping). Kids’ scoops go for $6-$7, single scoops are $8-$9, double scoops $12-$14 and flights are $22-$26.
Gaudreau and Khorsand said they’d love to receive input from the community on what ice cream flavors they’d want at the creamery.
“We want adults to come in here and be like kids again,” Gaudreau said.
Petals Creamery also offers standard coffee shop drinks made with Verve coffee beans, as well as Turkish coffee and Persian tea. The drinks menu ($4-$15) also includes affogato, Italian cream sodas, cafe glace (cold brewed coffee, milk, ice cream and whipped cream) and a carrot float, a Persian treat made of carrot juice and saffron ice cream.
“It sounds a little bizarre if you’ve never tried it, but it’s very refreshing,” Gaudreau said. “We had a couple people in here who are from Iran. They said, ‘I haven’t had this in 20 years. I cannot believe I’m drinking this right now.’”
While labeled a creamery, Petals focuses just as much attention on its desserts as its ice cream, Khorsand said. The dessert menu includes sholehzard, a traditional Persian rice pudding flavored with saffron, rose and cinnamon; phyllo-wrapped baklava cannoli; saffron tarts with saffron, rose and vanilla custard in a crumbly, flourless vanilla shell; and pistachio cupcakes made with handmade pistachio butter.
Gaudreau and Khorsand’s two must-order desserts are the saffron creme brulee and the cookie noir, a soft chocolate cookie with white chocolate chips.
In the future, Petals Creamery plans to introduce artisan sandwiches, such as mortadella and brie on Arabic bread or salad olivieh on a croissant. Gaudreau and Khorsand said they hope their business embodies the feeling of a Parisian cafe, where guests are encouraged to hang out and enjoy each other’s company over food and beverages.
“We want people to come in with their friends, sit at a table, chat for like an hour, have a tea, have a coffee. We can chit-chat with them as well,” Gaudreau said. “That’s the European vibe. It’s a little more relaxed.”
For Gaudreau and Khorsand, Petals Creamery isn’t about the money, they said; the goal is to spread happiness.
“That’s what ice cream is always about,” Gaudreau said. “I remember as a kid going with my parents. It was the best time in the world to go get a scoop of ice cream.”
Petals Creamery, 5 N. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos; 408-402-5629, Instagram: @petals.creamery. Tuesday to Thursday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Dig into food news. Follow the Peninsula Foodist on Instagram and subscribe to the newsletter to get insights on the latest openings and closings, learn what the Foodist is excited about eating, read exclusive interviews and keep up on the trends affecting local restaurants.
West Menlo Park schools end lockdown, authorities say suspect died of self-inflicted gunshot woundDecember 16, 2025 1:31 pm
