Dave & Meredith's Travel Blog

We were sitting in a small restaurant in Montepulciano and our waitress was fascinated by the electronic dictionary gadget we’ve been using for English/Italian translation (highly recommended by the way; worth the money). She asked me to translate the word “gelato” and the result that came up was “ice cream.” She pointed this out to her boss and he made a painful face of indignance. “Gelato,” he said, “is NOT ice cream!” Most people might think this is a case of someone being nitpicky because of cultural pride but he’s right. If you mix cream with sugar, thrown in some flavoring, then put that directly in an ice cream freezer, you’ll make ice cream. But if, before freezing, you also add egg yolk and then cook it on the stove as if you’re making a custard then, well, the food-science term for it is not ice cream but frozen custard. The egg yolks act as an emulsifier and the cooking breaks down the sugar crystals and thickens the mixture. (In addition, if you’re lactose-intolerant, the cooking breaks down the lactose so while you may not be able to eat ice cream, you can probably eat gelato. This is probably a blessing and a curse in some ways.)

We’ve eaten more than our fair share of gelato here. We didn’t really expect it but it’s part of the Italian experience. And as they say, “When in Rome, eat gelato as the Romans do.” Something like that. There seems to be a gelateria on every block and it’s hard to walk down the street without seeing a couple of people with a cone in their hand. In addition, when guide books describe a town, they typically mention the gelateria that they believe sells the best gelato. It must be an important topic: they don’t mention the best ravioli in town or the best pizza. Although we didn’t discuss and plan on this beforehand, we quickly hit an average of two cones of gelato per day so that we could compare our impressions with the guidebooks to see if we agreed. If you picked up on the word “average” then, yes, you’re right to infer that we’ve had a few 3-gelato days. There were one or two days when we had eaten too much over the course of the day so we decided to just have gelato for dinner and call it a night. Lately this has tapered off though. One reason is the realization that the pants are getting tight. The other is that the area considered to have the best gelato is Florence and we haven’t been there for a couple of weeks.

The flavors here are excellent. There are always the typical chocolates and vanillas but there are others such as pistachio (Mer’s favorite flavor), hazelnut, coffee, caramel, etc. The good gelaterias would make their own and typically had one or two uncommon flavors such as honey or caramel/pine-nut. There were always a lot of fruit flavors too although usually these were sorbetto and not gelato. Still very high quality. The usuals were lemon and strawberry but the best were ones like passion fruit, mango, and green apple.

Above: a cone of chocolate and pistachio gelato (the custom is to get two flavors in your cone)

We formed our own opinions as we went and, for posterity and for those who search on the Web while doing research for a future trip, here is our set of mini-reviews:

• Rome: We spent an evening and half a day seeking out the gelateria named il Gelato di San Crispino. Many people claim it is the best in Rome and it was mentioned in Eat, Pray, Love, a very popular, recent book. We thought the quality was great but the owner’s quest for purity (all organic, etc. etc.) meant that they didn’t flavor things very strongly. So we were psyched for things like honey/ginger but it just wasn’t an overwhelming taste sensation. For our money, Gelateria della Scala in Trastevere was just as good quality with better flavors. Here we are enjoying our cones there:

  

• Sorrento: In Sorrento, we agreed with all the guide books that Gelateria Davide was best. Our friends in Bassano up north also agreed. Davide also had the largest flavor selection we saw anywhere on the trip. Beware: there is a Gelateria David (no “E”) near the train station and they are not the same!
• Florence: The Florence area is supposed to have the best gelato in Italy and it did not disappoint. But while almost everyone claims that Vivoli is the best, we found it slightly grainy and otherwise nothing special. We tracked down a relatively newer one named Grom that was supposed to give Vivoli a run for the money and it our favorite of the entire trip. They’re tough to find (a very small street near Piazza Signore) but it’s worth the effort. Lots of gelaterias have creamy gelato with good flavor but Grom won because their flavors were a little more intense and, most importantly, not too sweet. The chocolate tasted like good dark chocolate and the coffee was slightly bitter. The caramel had a very slight scorched taste (in a good way). We went to Grom more than once. Ok, more than twice.
• Montepulciano: It doesn’t look like much from the outside (see someone else’s linked photo here) but Il Capriccio also gets points for being “non troppo dolce” – not too sweet.
• Positano: The town is pretty small and there weren’t a lot of choices but we found Buca di Bacco near the beach pretty good.
• San Gimignano: After Grom in Florence, Gelateria di Piazza in San Gimignano was next best. It was outstanding (and they make sure you know it by posting awards all over their shop). The line out the door almost all day is a testament to the gelato. Here was the view as we mulled over what flavors to try:

  

• Siena: This was tough. We found a place near the Campo di Fiori that had incredible presentation (name forgotten but something like Brevidi). Most gelaterias keep their gelato in mounds with a topping on them to look abundant but this place was mountainous (see picture immediately below). The quality wasn’t there though. We mentioned this to the people behind the counter at a deli where we had lunch and they felt the best was Antica Cremeria which is a 5 minute walk outside the old city. We tried it and it was pretty good but the jury is still out. No winner here yet.

  
  Above: Meredith chooses from the mountains of gelato.
  

• Corniglia: I stopped in this town during my hike in Cinque Terre. It’s a one-gelateria town so by definition, Gelateria Artiginale on Via Fieschi was the best. To be fair though, I had the local honey flavor which was great and the cinnamon was the best I had in Italy.
• Bellagio: We only tried Gelateria Lollipop on the waterfront but it was very creamy and was the first place we found with the caramel/pine nut flavor. Recommended.
• Bassano del Grappa: Our friends took us to Gelateria Il Tucano and it was very good. We tried the semifreddo (like a whipped cream texture) which was great.
• Bologna: Bologna has many choices but GelateriaGianni on the square with the two leaning towers was superb. Apparently, all the students hanging around outside all day agree. There were lots of flavors we saw nowhere else.
• Venice: We heard several different claims for which gelateria was best so, on the day I ran around the city without Meredith, I sampled three of them (I suffer so that our blog readers will benefit). There was one in Campo Santi Giovanni e Paolo that I can’t remember the name of but whatever: the “famous” gelato was completely forgettable. My next stop was Gelatone in Canareggio and for me was tied for the best in Venice. Their sorbetto was amazing too: I tried strawberry and green apple. I also tried Gelateria Nico which many claim is the best but I was pretty underwhelmed by that too. It wasn’t bad but certainly not amazing. Meredith and I both tried the one our guidebook and our gondolier preferred named La Boutique del Gelato. It was very good and the value was great since we bought small cones which looked like large cones. But a few doors down is another named Riva Reno which we felt was better. In fact, it was our favorite in Venice. Try the mango and passion fruit sorbettos there too. Excellent.

  
  Above: Meredith loves her some serious gelato.

– Dave