Obsessing over gelati in Milan
In 2013, Dave Chambers went to Milan in Italy, ate lots of gelati, and wrote an article about his experience. In 2021, Dave went into his living room, re-read his article and wept.
It is the 8th March 2013, the day is cool but sunny. It is still winter here in Milano, Italy. Food and Italians go together like toast and marmalade on Isle of Wight. The clever people that they are, they gathered the recipe from Marco Polo and created ice cream. Gelati to the Italians, and not simply ice cream as we know it.
We head to downtown Milano for some creature comforts and good European hot chocolate and to search for that legendary gelati.
Forget your bucket list, it’s so yesterday; just visit Italy. Don’t dally, this place is cool. Built by people that know a thing or two about how to construct a medieval village. It has everything you never realised you needed. But now know where your life experiences can be fulfilled.
In Italy, they have gelati; it’s everywhere. In Italy, it helps to be passionate and quite obsessive about food. You fit the culture better. The medieval diet is a thing. The food here makes your heart sing. I am a man of simple taste, I like a Lou Reed riff, Italian Gelati, fresh snow, Uva di Troia, blue sky, powder snow, porcini mushrooms, wasabi pear paste, nutella pizza, Italian hot chocolate, and cats. Italy has nine out of the above, that’s plenty to make a trip of a lifetime.
Tack it on to the end or start of your next skiing trip.
Anyhow, gelati is our focus. We decided, as you do in Italy, to search for that zen moment. Or nirvana ,when food passes your lips and mere seconds later you are taken to another place.
Day one, Milano
We sit in the hugely dominating presence of the massive cathedral that almost blankets the whole square. The Duomo di Milano, 600 years and still standing, all 135 gargoyles of it. Seated at an open-air restaurant, we eat yet another excellent pasta. Porcini mushrooms grow wild in the forest here. Collected from the forest and scattered with a slip of black truffle across a fresh house made pasta. Simple yet sublime. Accompanied by a very good Montepulciano D’Abruzzo.
The conversation turns to gelati, and, I kid you not, within twenty quick paces we find a purveyor of fine gelati . We ordered enough scoops to satisfy a platoon. All your typical flavours. Our excitement was rewarded with explosions of flavour.
Could it get better than this. We didn’t think so.
Day two
We are just getting a feel for the Italian lifestyle. Our concentration heightened now we are tuned in to the local food scene. Feeling switched on. We trawl through the piazzas. We circle and wander the terracotta paved streets looking for shops that mysteriously stay hidden for almost two hours looking for snow wear retail stuff. My mate has a tired ski jacket in need of replacement. Suddenly we blunder upon the old bohemian quarter, exclusive and designer expensive. The luxury within these narrowed ancient walkways is revealed. By chance or divine intervention, our next serve of designer gelati is nigh. Imagine mango, so smooth, the deepest orange in colour and very glossy with smooth mouth feel. This mango gelati has the most intense sweet flavour and equal first place to yesterday’s I decide. Sacrilegious, I know, but folded within a wispy thin, crepe. What the…? Simply the best: cioccolata italiana milano.
Last day
We lunch under the brooding gargoyles of the Duomo di Milano, now grey with mist and rain. Within our shallow bowl, pasta. The waitress recommends a very fine local red wine. I ask her about gelati. “Oh yes,” she says encouragingly, “You should visit Cioccolata Italiana,””further adding, “It is the best in Milano.” We are excited. I demand four flavours. It’s a bucket but a small one. Of flavours chosen, I can’t remember because my tastebuds had hard wired to my brain. Endorphins now in overdrive. The Cioccolata Italiana Chocolate conjured angels. Those angels started dancing on my tongue, the intensity of chocolate, the smoothness as it melted around your taste buds, all balanced with a not too sweet finish, a deep dark chocolate that lingered long after the first taste. The heavens had opened just then for a tiny glimpse of ice cream nirvana. This is not just any gelati, this is alchemy for the tastebuds and simple the best gelati I have ever experienced. The ancient Romans may have brought you the amphitheatre, sewers, and concrete, but I am thanking them for their wonderful gelati and the equally the Medici Family for Marco Polo.