Victory tastes sweet. Miami shop offers treats with ties to World Cup finalists
.jpg "Entrepreneurs Yule Núñez and Laura Luque founded Santo Dulce! Churros and Ice Cream eight years ago with the goal of drawing inspiration from the churros of Latin American countries and Spain while adding a unique Miami touch. They are featuring special churros inspired by the flavors of countries competing in the World Cup.")
The FIFA World Cup is also being played bite by bite in Miami. And it tastes like churros. Or rather, six flavors inspired by some of the tournament’s most popular national teams.
Santo Dulce! Churros and Ice Cream — which was founded eight years ago and brings together the talent of a Venezuelan and a Colombian, Yule Núñez and Laura Luque — has always aimed to push the boundaries of churros and other popular treats at Latin American street festivals.
“The churro is a dessert we can all identify with, and it unites us,” says Núñez, who, when she arrived in Miami, began working at Churromanía, a company of which her brother owns several franchises.
While doing marketing for street festivals, she discovered that practically every Latin American country claimed to have invented the churro. Each had a version similar to the Spanish churro, probably the only one that can legitimately claim the origin of this tradition.
Many of those churros look alike, but each keeps its own personality. That’s why Núñez — the mastermind behind Santo Dulce!’s recipes — decided not to commit to any single style or country, but to create flavors with Miami’s true DNA: diversity.
Her goal was to innovate and develop local products using ingredients deeply rooted in Latin American culture, like dulce de leche or cajeta, or combinations like guava and goat cheese, which, she explains, bring a more sophisticated flavor profile. She admits, too, that the guava one is still her favorite.
The brand’s signature is the ice cream that accompanies the churros and turns each creation into a temptation that’s hard to resist. Later, came the churro taco and the churro cone, both filled with ice cream. They also decided to innovate with size and created a giant churro that is wider than a person’s face.
Holding it up to your face, it looks like the halo around a saint’s head; that’s where the name Santo Dulce! (Holy Sweet!) came from. Not to mention that enjoying one of those churros — the Santo Sundae, a halo-shaped churro atop several scoops of ice cream — becomes almost a religious experience.
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The business took off quickly. It went from a single fixed trailer at The Doral Yard in Doral to roaming Miami with three other trucks that attend festivals or remain parked at fixed spots, like the corner of Northeast 97th Street and Second Avenue in a Miami Shores spot that is open on Saturdays.
On weekends, Santo Dulce! can also be found at the Smorgasburg South Florida festival in Fort Lauderdale. Santo Dulce! also has a FIFA agreement that allows the business to operate inside Miami Gardens’ Hard Rock Stadium, where the World Cup’s third-place game between England and France was slated to be played on Saturday.
World Cup churros
The traditional Spanish churro, dusted with sugar and paired with the thick hot chocolate typical of cafés in Spain — the kind that Miami residents look for as soon as a cold front blows in — also has its place among the “World Cup churros.”
That classic represents La Roja, the Spanish national team, which this Sunday will play in the 2026 World Cup final against Argentina.
La Albiceleste, which means The White and Sky Blue and is the nickname of Argentina’s team, also inspires another churro in the collection. And what else could it be filled with but dulce de leche? The offering is completed with a dulce de leche cream and a touch of sea salt that balances the sweetness.
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Another standout is the “Asian” churro, made with Japanese purple sweet potato dough and filled with coconut cream. It’s finished with a purple cream and shredded coconut.
“The Arabic is our version of the Dubai chocolate churro, filled with pistachio, and topped with Nutella, crushed pistachio and kataifi,” says Gabriela Mejía, who is Santo Dulce!’s operations manager and guided the Herald through the trailer kitchen.
The “Tricolor,” in honor of the Colombian national team, is Santo Dulce!’s take on the classic guava-and-cheese flavor. It’s filled with a goat-cheese sauce and crowned with guava and grated llanero cheese.
The “brasileiro” is inspired by the brigadeiro, the traditional Brazilian sweet made with condensed milk, cocoa, butter and chocolate sprinkles. In this version, the churro is filled with dulce de leche and covered with chocolate sauce, condensed milk and chocolate sprinkles. A churro that, like Brazilians themselves, has it all.
Artisanal churros
The production process remains deeply artisanal. The secret of the dough is achieving a crispy exterior and a soft interior. After frying, each churro is filled and topped with sauces, creams and colorful details like sprinkles. In other versions, the workers incorporate Oreo cookies, Ferrero Rocher chocolates and even small portions of Tres Leches cake.
“We wanted to create a visually attractive product, so it would do the marketing for us,” explains Núñez, who has a degree in audiovisual media, film and television.
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Núñez traveled to Colombia to study and met Luque, whom she has been married to for 14 years. It was precisely Colombia — and more specifically the combination of wafers, dulce de leche and cheese — that inspired the idea of mixing sweet and savory flavors, an idea that led to some of Santo Dulce!’s churros, such as the maple with bacon.
Today, they make doughs flavored with chocolate, strawberry and pumpkin — for Halloween and Thanksgiving — and even red-velvet churros, inspired by the traditional American cake.
While Núñez leads the creative side, Luque heads the financial and administrative areas, supported by Mejía, who started at Santo Dulce! as a truck driver and brings kitchen and restaurant experience that she began building at 16.
Santo Dulce! plans to keep betting on the streets and festivals, which Núñez says are the ideal stage to enjoy their churros.
“We’ve created a brand that represents Miami, its diversity, and we’re going to keep innovating,” Núñez pledged.
If you go
- What: Santo Dulce!
- Where and when: The Doral Yard, 8455 NW 53rd St., Suite 106, Doral. Every day starting 1 p.m. ... Smorgasburg South Florida, 563 NE Second St., Fort Lauderdale, on Saturdays and Sundays. ... The business also has a truck in Miami Shores at 9734 NE Second Ave. on Saturdays.
- More information: santodulcechurros.com or 786-723-3883.
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This story was originally published July 18, 2026 at 1:16 PM.
