It is a global phenomenon. The art of making ice cream as it is done in Italy, the country to which the origin of this fresh delicacy is attributed, has been landing everywhere for years. Italians first went out to teach the world what a pizza was and how to make the best one, and then they did the same with their ice creams. They have conquered with their art of seducing the palate with very few ingredients, and with that it has been very easy for them to instruct in their technique and sell the best technology and everything needed to faithfully emulate their art.
Italian ice cream parlors have followed in the footsteps of Italian pizzerias ---Neapolitan ones leading the way--- in conquering the palate starting from the simplest: fruit and water. Just as they did with the most authentic and original Neapolitan pizza, based on simple ingredients ---flour, water, yeast, tomato, mozzarella, a few basil leaves and a few drops of olive oil---, Italian ice cream plays, extraordinarily, in the first division.
Barcelona is an example of the proliferation of ice cream parlors. And each one better. Most of those that are gaining more relevance, more queues at their doors and more likes on social networks have an Italian soul behind them, connected, in passion and conviction, to the origin of ice cream and to that simplicity that prioritizes the quality of the raw material as the basis of the best ice cream. Mastering the entire process, from the selection of fresh or dried fruit, to the utensils for serving it, passing through the preparation and the right points of everything, ingredients, temperature and times, is part of the secret. The rest of the key to making good ice cream is, according to those involved, the machinery and utensils used.
Massimo Pignata was first amazed by the pozzetti, the stainless steel containers seen in some ice cream parlors that keep the ice cream in its optimal state of freshness, and from which it is scooped to serve customers. Massimo discovered them in Turin, in a new ice cream shop that opened very close to where he worked. His sweet tooth made him a regular customer, without yet knowing that one day he would be the one running an ice cream shop. He paid attention to all the details of that innovative ice cream business in his country ---he was born in Bricherasio, just over half an hour from Turin---, and his curiosity led him to train as an ice cream maker. He met an entrepreneur who asked him to help set up an ice cream shop in the town of Novara, west of Milan, and there he learned the art of transforming natural products into artisan ice creams.
DelaCrem is the name of the two ice cream shops Massimo Pignata has opened in Barcelona. When success began to queue at the first one, located on Enric Granados street, he opened the second, on Sant Joan promenade. And now, he and his team are already preparing the opening of a third establishment, scheduled for the first days of September, with a view to the Diada. It will be on Consell de Cent street and will be named DelaTerra because, although he now uses many local products to make his ice creams, he wants to fully promote that zero-kilometer approach for fruits, vegetables, aromatic herbs, and other crops from local producers.
His mind, his hands, and his heart are an inseparable trio in his workshop, which creates for each month of the year an ice cream made daily with what the earth gives us at that moment. This is how he built his wheel of flavors, in which the year-round ice creams, the most classic ones, such as cocoa, pistachio, fior di panna, yogurt, or vanilla, appear in the center. Around them, month by month, surprises such as muscat grape ice cream in September, harvest time; mandarin, persimmon, walnut, or orange in winter months, or apricot and melon in summer. At the gates of summer, always: Sant Joan coca ice cream.
R&D with Italian taste
The ice creams at Cremeria Toscana, on Muntaner street, are also made from start to finish by their author, Andrea Giuntoli. Together with his wife, Natali Holguin, they opened the ice cream parlor in Barcelona twenty years ago. They have managed to equip themselves with the latest technology, necessary to produce ice cream in large quantities, to supply other ice cream parlors and restaurants. In Peru, Natali's country, they opened a Cremeria Toscana five years ago. In Mataró and Molins de Rei they also have a store, and they work facilitating the opening of franchises.
They know how important it is to choose the right machinery to make high-quality ice creams. "Now they are already manufactured in the United States and China, but the Italians are the ones who have created the world of ice cream and everything necessary to make the best," says Andrea Giuntoli. And he explains that "in Italy there are many companies that sell you everything you need to set up an ice cream parlor, even the product to make it, and that makes life much easier to set up an ice cream shop. In three or four days they train you."
This may partly explain the boom of ice cream parlors, both in Barcelona and in cities and towns in all countries, where there are more and more. Some are franchises of firms that may not even have opened any of their own outside Italy. Machinery and semi-finished product make it very easy to open ice cream parlors or franchises of existing ones. But Andrea Giuntoli, with twenty years at the head of his ice cream workshop, has become convinced of the advantages of doing everything himself. In his Cremeria Toscana, they even roast and process nuts to obtain their own creams, guaranteeing 100% naturalness. Pistachio ice cream, they say, is the star of their ice cream parlor.
As in the restaurant, says Giuntoli, each ice cream maker has their own touch. And this Milanese, from a Tuscan family, has wanted to greatly enhance nuts, giving the same treatment to their preparation for his ice creams as to the making of the ice creams themselves. And with that mastery, Andrea and Natali have ended up creating a brand of nut creams. Nats is the name that identifies the innovative range of tubes of nutritious hazelnut, almond, pistachio, cashew, and peanut creams, which serve as an accompaniment or topping for fresh fruits and vegetables, desserts, or other culinary preparations. Or, simply, as an excellent restorative before or after playing sports. It is a product that, they explain, is in high demand in France and the United Kingdom. They leverage their extensive knowledge of the product and their machinery to produce the creams that are the base of Cremeria Toscana's ice creams.
No colorants or flavors
The experience in the field and fruit crops, whether from family history of ancestors or direct, and artisanal tradition converge in the Gelati Dino workshop. The first ice cream parlor opened in Empuriabrava in 1978. It was opened by Alessandro Pavese, a winemaker from Piedmont who owned a fruit shop in Turin. He was, most probably, the first Italian to set up an Italian ice cream parlor in Catalonia. Since then, that seed on the Costa Brava has germinated to become the largest artisan ice cream company in Spain. It has 36 points of sale, four of which have opened this year, one of them in the Maremagnum Shopping Center in Barcelona. The new premises, opened a few weeks ago, have a production area at the point of sale itself, allowing customers to enjoy fresh, artisanal ice creams prepared on the spot. Alessandro Pavesse, known to all as Dino, along with the next generations at the helm of Gelati Dino, continue to make their ice creams in Empordà with fruit they buy directly from local and Italian producers. Their ice creams evolve, adapting to current tastes and needs, such as reduced sugar, and they have something new every month.
Now, Gelati Dino is a sweet complement to the Barcelona complex of Maremagnum, which is managed by the French group Klépierre and which last year was renovated with an investment of 15 million euros, which also served to add 5,000 square meters of commercial space. The center now includes the Time Out Market, dedicated to gastronomy and culture and inaugurated this summer. The recent opening of the Gelati Dino ice cream parlor joins the dozen ice cream parlors that this firm with Italian pedigree has in Barcelona and its metropolitan area.
Another opening in Barcelona, scheduled for September 4, is the new artisan ice cream parlor of the Argentine firm Lucciano's, at number 14 Ferran Street. Its founder, Christian Otero, already has eighty points of sale worldwide. His ice cream workshop in this new location in Barcelona's Gothic Quarter will recreate a lunar station. And in workshops like that of the Oggi ice cream parlor (for Officina Gelato Gusto Italiano), with origins in the city of Udine, in northeastern Italy and well located in Barcelona at number 15 Comtal Street, the capacity of Italians to marvel our palate is confirmed.
They all have increasing competition from good ice cream makers, but it is clear that the best weapon for both is to continue seducing Barcelonans, each with their specialties and strengths, and always with the best raw materials and care. They have all the months at their disposal to do so, since ice cream long ago crossed the borders of summer. Now mascarpone, goat cheese, gianduia, tiramisu and all possible fruits, also in a more savory version, can surprise us in creamy, cool texture at any time of the year.
Furthermore, we are lucky that the hands and imagination of these ice cream specialists also enrich the menus of the city's restaurants. Good chefs who discover them turn them into suppliers.
The attractiveness of the Catalan capital for Italian entrepreneurs contributes to the proliferation of ice cream parlorsMany other ice cream parlors in Barcelona, although not promoted or run by Italians, are also inspired by that origin ---apparently Roman--- of ice creams and sorbets that have one of the best reputations on the planet. An example is pastry chef Takashi Ochiai's ice cream parlor. His ice creams bear his stamp with strong Japanese touches, but on a base of Italian tradition.
The other reason that converges in Barcelona with that great prestige that gives wings to ice cream parlors is the enormous attraction that the Catalan capital exudes for so many Italian entrepreneurs eager for this city to be the one where they can offer a taste of their dense, creamy, and so seductive creations. And, incidentally, to be able to live here.