Where are the best ice cream parlors in Italy?

Ice cream is undoubtedly synonymous with summer, and consuming it is an ancient tradition in humans. Similar foods can be found in the Bible, where Isaac offered Abraham a chilled drink with goat's milk and snow to quench his thirst, and in ancient Greece, around 500 B.C., refreshing drinks were made with honey, lemon, and pomegranate juice mixed with snow and ice.

However, ice cream as we know it today is a completely Italian invention. Starting with the Arab sherbet (does sorbetto ring a bell?), which was nothing more than fruit juices with flavors of fruits that used the snow from Mount Etna to keep them cool. In the 1500s, there was a refinement of the beverage, with Bernardo Buontalenti at the court of Caterina de' Medici in Florence. He proposed a sherbet made with milk, cream, egg white, snow, lemon, salt, and sugar. One hundred years later, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli found a way to mix and package ice cream, obtained from a sorbet machine given to him by his grandfather. Later, he emigrated to France and began exporting the new discovery throughout Europe.

From there, success was global, and from a couple of ice cream artists, it became a business that moves 9.5 billion euros annually in Europe, which corresponds to 60% of the entire global ice cream economy.

With so many participants in this business, it's challenging to find real excellence, but someone has done it for you, partly based on personal experience (we like ice cream almost as much as cars... almost!), and partly because in Italy, Gambero Rosso, with its Gelato Guide, has discovered more than 400 excellences worthy of being awarded the title of Best Ice Cream Parlors in Italy. Today, we suggest three for you!

THE BEST CHOCOLATE... TO DRINK Fiordipanna – Cornaredo Milan has been known for drinking for years, and today you could say it's also for eating. Inside the metropolitan city of Sant'Ambrogio, there's an ice cream parlor that has been awarded the title of Best Chocolate in Italy. It's Fiordipanna in the small town of Cornaredo. Here, Osvaldo Palermo, owner and former computer specialist, opened in 1994, and his flagship is a dark chocolate ice cream made with cocoa originating from Ghana. This creation is dedicated to supporting a non-profit organization with which he has collaborated for years on projects in Africa based on fundraising. The taste is unmistakable: not too sweet, intense, and creamy. An experience with the primordial flavor of chocolate and distant places. Definitely worth trying.

FROM FAIRY TALES TO ICE CREAMS Gretel Factory – Formia In Formia, a small farm has opened for children and adults, which has been awarded six times in a row as one of the best ice cream parlors by Gambero Rosso: Gretel Factory has an educational, playful, and natural purpose. In addition to creating natural ice cream, its goal is to introduce children to the organic food chain without preservatives or artificial flavors, through fun and, above all, food. Ice cream production is an integral part of an organic and natural process that has led Veronica Fedele's creation to become an agri-ice cream parlor with controlled supply chains, selected suppliers, self-produced pastes, and a promoter of food education. A sort of hub for organic and healthy food that everyone agrees on. 

IT'S BETTER! Emilio – Maratea Emilio Panzardi has a movie-worthy ice cream parlor: overlooking the enchanting bay of the same name, it collects high-quality raw materials, innovative recipes, and Slow Food presidia of some of the most delicious products in Southern Italy, shaping them all into an ice cream that appeals to both tourists fascinated by the place and Emilio's ice cream enthusiasts. Particularly famous is the Lemon ice cream, a flagship of the place, made with real lemons from the Amalfi Coast. A taste like "View of Maratea" may never be invented, but certainly, enjoying an ice cream awarded by Gambero Rosso while watching the swaying boats and the capricious sea mark a peaceful summer day is priceless.

Joker: BIRAGHI'S MINIMALISM – Turin There are various "tactics" for offering the best possible ice cream: some make a few with controlled supply chains, others make many to amaze with flavors, others focus on a couple of extraordinary flavors to accompany more "ordinary" ones that can satisfy everyone. Well, in Turin, Biraghi takes a clear-cut approach and has opened a sales point that sells only one flavor, and only one: fiordilatte. Biraghi is a dairy company that is almost a hundred years old, producing the aged cheese GranBiraghi, Gorgonzola Dop, butter, and ricotta. After 2020, it decided to open a shop where it exclusively sells a fiordilatte ice cream. If you go there, there's always a line; no commitment, pure and simple: the essence of ice cream, an ancient call to that simple need to refresh, biblical and summery, with which sherbet was born.

Which ice cream would you like to try among these? Why not try them all? Just bring your appetite, and we at Edilfar Rent will provide the right car for you! Come visit us at our locations in Milan, Modena, and Rome and let yourself be transported into a premium and worry-free driving experience. And remember, ice cream is enjoyed outside the car, eh! 😊"