Gelaterie della Firenze

So, I meant to write about gelaterias as I discovered them. However that hasn’t ended up happening with a few exceptions, so I’ll try to do a quick summary of the best. I’ve come across a few unknown hole-in-the-wall places that I like quite a lot, and I’ve also randomly stumbled into some of the most renowned gelaterias in the city.

First, Gelateria Caffetteria Veneta in Piazza Beccaria. Conveniently located half way between my house and Kelly’s, we met there sometimes when she was especially busy. It’s not open very late or very often, but we went a few times together. The gelato was obviously homemade, and their fruit gelatos were superb. I found one of my favorite pairings with dark chocolate there: pear, the gelato full of small bits of ripe fruit.

On Halloween, after going out to dinner with Kelly, Tristan, and Alii and her friends from Genova at Il Pizzaiolo we were wandering over towards the Duomo and their hostel when we passed Gelateria dei Vivoli. Kelly asked if we wanted to stop, and when I said I’d never been there she declared that it was famous, it was supposed to be the best in the city, and we had to try it. So try it we did. I found it very good, with a slightly overwhelming number of flavors, but honestly not an extraordinary experience. Delicious all around, certainly, but not a particularly remarkable memory or a gelato that made me want to come back again and again.

During the lunch Kelly and I spent with our professor Fosca and the director Campani, we discussed gelaterias, and they strongly recommended a gelateria close to the Duomo called Grom. It’s on the same street as the English book store, and I’d almost walked in during my first week in the city. I was by the Duomo for lunch a few days after our conversation, so I stopped in. They have a few dependable flavors and a menu of seasonal flavors that change every month, and the feeling of gelato artisans with an almost scientific process. My first time there I had dark chocolate with the November flavor of caramel. A very delicious combination. Their dark chocolate gelato isn’t the darkest or most decadent of all the gelaterias I’ve tried, but it was very good and went well with the caramel which was absolutely delicious. I went back this last week as part of a sort of farewell tour to my favorite places around the city. This time dark chocolate with the December flavor of almond. Again, delicious. The almond had little slivers of nut in it and once gain went excellently with the slightly mild dark chocolate.

In mid November I went with a group of students to Spera Pizzeria, the best pizzeria in Florence, and afterwards walked a couple blocks to Gelateria Medici which they said was also famous and practically a requirement if you were studying here as we were. Again, overwhelming choices, and the unusual ability to have three separate flavors in a small size – usually you just get two. I forget all of my flavors, but I remember instead of dark chocolate I went for their spicy cinnamon chocolate. It was good, and kind of reminded me of Mexican hot chocolate, or Chuao’s spicy mayan chocolate, but honestly it wasn’t my favorite. To really rate it fairly I would need to go back and try some flavors I liked better, but it was kind of far away from my house and I never did end up going back.

I think perhaps my favorite of all of them is Gelateria di Neri, by Santa Croce. My host brother mentioned it when I asked him about the best gelaterias early in the quarter, and I suggested we go together sometime, but that somehow never ended up happening. Anyway, this Wednesday night when Kelly and I were haphazardly wandering around the city starting to say goodbye and wrapping up our memories, it was one of the few places open and as we wandered in I said I’d never been. She was stunned, and I realized that once again I’d waited until the very last moment of the quarter to find one of the best parts of Florence. It took forever to get service, as the one person working first filled a to-go container, and then made crepes for a couple who were there before us. But after I had relaxed and gotten out of my American culture of rush-rush and into the Italian culture of taking your time over food and never being in a rush I enjoyed a conversation with Kelly, and actually appreciated the care and attention with which the server was attending each customer. I ordered a dark chocolate with caramella mou – I have no idea exactly what it was, but I think some type of caramel. Very delicious. And the server was, as I said, very nice, which Kelly and I realized this last month was usually the determining factor for whether or not we liked a place – how cheap and good the food was but mostly how friendly the people were. I went back the next afternoon with Miki and tried dark chocolate with a basically strawberry cheesecake type of flavor which was a bit different from any of the combinations I’d tried before and really quite phenomenal.

Overall? My favorites were Grom for pure artistic ability, and Neri for deliciousness and overall character. And, I have to say, La Carriera 2 was consistently good all quarter. They have possibly the most decadent of all the dark chocolates I tried, and we also discovered a larger original La Carriera that is apparently pretty well known. So my advice for anyone coming to Florence and staying in the center – Grom by the Duomo and La Carriera 2 and Neri by Santa Croce. Or, if you are across the Arno and a little bit more westward, more in the vicinity of Santa Trinita, go to the original La Carriera, and do yourself a huge favor and go to Hemminway’s for the world’s best hot chocolate (they also have gelato, which I didn’t get the chance to try) And just enjoy! I have the suspicion that Florence has some of the best gelato in all of Italy, so don’t let the opportunity go to waste.

Gelateria La Carraia 2

I’ve walked past this Gelateria almost every day since I arrived in Florence, because conveniently enough it is located on my walk to and from school. A small hole in the wall place, I didn’t originally have much faith in it. Judging a gelateria on appearances is a fine art, as there must be thousands of gelaterias in Florence. According to my host brother, gelato was invented here in Florence and, he added, the inventor of the ice cream cone was an Italian, in America, who got tired of his glass ice cream dishes breaking so invented cones to replace them. Don’t random facts like that make life more interesting?

Anyway, I didn’t go inside Gelateria La Carraia 2 because I couldn’t tell if it offered gelato of the mass-produced, poor quality type or not. Eventually, though, convenience overcame my skepticism and Kelly and I stopped in one day. We’ve stopped several times since then – I think of it as sort of the “house wine” of gelaterias. Not jaw dropping, celebrate a special occasion kind of gelato, but rather a pretty good every day gelato.

It has several things going for it. First, as I mentioned, its always easy to stop by. There are several good lunch places nearby too, so its easy to just make it our next stop. Second, Kelly’s favorite flavor which she never fails to order is yogurt, and Gelateria La Carraia 2 offers not only yogurt gelato but also yogurt and nutella gelato – how can you beat that? And third, it offers gelato in a 1.30 euro price. Most places the smallest you can get is 2, or 1.50, so this generous small is nice – just the right amount, never so much that you feel uncomfortably full even if you do come straight from lunch, and not so much as it makes you reluctant to pull out your wallet (gelatos seem to add up very quickly here!).

I've enjoyed trying several flavours: cioccolato fondente (dark chocolate), cioccolato (chocolate), nocciola (hazelnut), and biscotti (cookies). Very good. Its hard to find a flavor to stand up to the decadent but not super sweet cioccolato fondente, but I love it, so I’ll keep experimenting with new combinations.

Gelato Survey: First Entry

I think I've found my first good gelateria. Kelly and I were wandering the streets on the southern side of the Arno yesterday, using our lunch our to explore a new street and get a feel for the whole lunch scenario outside of the touristy parts of town. Successful in our lunch pursuit, we found a decent pannino for only 2.50 euro, which is almost half what places in the touristy part of town sell it for. Anyway, continuing our wandering, were crossing the Ponte Santa Trinita, the bridge just one to the west of Ponte Vechio, when we spotted this Gelateria on the corner, aptly named "Gelateria Santa Trinita."

Unlike the cafes with a tiny comercial gelato freezer that holds the standard six flavours, this gelateria had a room devoted to gelato, with the gelato freezer stretching the entire length and holding in it's deliciously frozen depths a couple dozen flavours. It was quite difficult to decide which kind to get. I know the translations for most of the flavours (gelato flavours are definitely high up on the list of important Italian words to know) but there were easily five or six flavours that I had no clue about. After agonzing moments of decision while we waited for our turn to order, Kelly and I finally selected one flavour each to try - Kelly tried the yogurt flavour, to see if it really was the same as her american favorite, and I tried "Santa Trinita." A swirl of colors from cream to brown looked very promising, and the name told me that it was the house specialty, but other than that I have no idea what it was that I ate. Very good though. I think somewhere in the concoction was some sort of nut flavour.

In summation, Kelly came away with a double scoop of Yogurt in a cone, a dependable reproduction of the flavour some know here in America. I ordered one scoop Santa Trinita and one Chocolate in a cup. The chocolate wasn't overly sweet, but it went very well with the other flavour, and I thoroughly enjoyed my choice. We both ordered the 2 euro size and agreed that they gave generous portions - in the future we might get the 1.50 euro size which is the smallest possible.

Results: Gelateria Santa Trinita was excellent. Definitely going to go back for more of those flavours.