Gelato – the Italian word for ice cream. Yet, Italian ice cream is so different from anything else I’ve ever experienced! Its so creamy and tasty, I can be excused for eating more than one a day on some occasions!
We tried Gelato in all the cities we stopped in during our time in Italy however I think Florence had my favourite shop, followed by an expensive place in Bologna. My boyfriends flatmate recommended some of the places I will list at the bottom (he’s from near Bologna).
This is my guide to finding the best gelato in Italy!
Firstly, if you can see the gelato then it’s probably cheap and commercial ice cream. All the places that make it by hand, usually keep it in the gelato churns. (Exposure to air forms crystals in the ice cream and changes the texture/flavour)
Then it always needs to be scooped in with a paddle, any decent gelateria uses paddles!
This also leads onto not being charged by the ball (like you do in the UK or in Venice) but being charged by the cone. I heard one British boy moaning that he had two scoops instead of one… I’d be happy with more than I paid for! You normally get 2 flavours for a small cone.
A decent gelateria will have only waffle cones and cups, there won’t be any of the cheap cones in sight! The places with cheap cones also normally have ice cream covered in pieces of fruit or the chocolate bar it takes its flavour from.
My other best piece of advice is that, if the pistachio gelato is brown instead of green then its homemade or been made very recently instead of the mass produced green nonsense!
There we go. Search for places with gelato churns, paddles, brown pistachio gelato and price by the cone!
Our favourite places were:
Rome – Fatamorgana Corso http://www.gelateriafatamorgana.com/web/ These are a chain around Rome with natural ingredients, although you can see the gelato there (breaking my own rules) which is beautiful! Their chocolate hazelnut is the bomb!
Florence – La Strega Nocciola http://www.lastreganocciola.it/ This is my favourite place we visited!! So beautiful and the pistachio was so beautiful I could have cried!
Bologna – Cremeria Santo Stefano https://www.facebook.com/CremeriaSantoStefano
Also I loved Iglu with their award winning chocolate ice cream and they were 20m from our apartment! http://www.gelateriaiglu.it/
Venice – Suso gelato was the only one we really loved in Venice but it did have the Venice price tag and charged by the ball. If you’re there though, try it as we loved it! http://suso.gelatoteca.it/
TheGreatAmbini 