La Gelatessa

Glasgow

IT’S grey, cold, the pavements are wet. Europe may be on fire but this is just another Scottish summer. It’s hardly ice cream weather. And yet when I drive off the roundabout and onto Nithsdale Road I almost high-five my fat self at seeing La Gelatessa open. I’ve been in this movie before.

Three maybe four times when the sun did shine I’ve wheeled round here to find it closed. Cue Homer Simpson-esque cursing at joints that don’t make their hours clear enough (to stupid moi). Yes, once I even arrived on a sunny weekend day. Open. The queue all-the-way-down-the-street ridiculous. Pfft, I scoffed. And immediately left.

But today. Right now. Lights are on. People are in. No queue. And I’m bouncing from the car like a crazy man; within minutes standing at that counter being looked at frankly rather curiously, by three serving people.

Ah, the ice cream list is taped to the counter below me. I look down; random-order four flavours. “Cones or tubs?” comes the next question. Ah. That list is there on the back wall. I look up. “Tubs, please.”

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All the time realising I want to sit in here; lounge in this retro-modern, flamingo pink, starkly classic yet insta-cool, ice cream shop vibe. But the two tables inside are already taken; the bench outside too.

By the time I’ve moved round to the pay bit, we’ve all kinda forgotten exactly what I ordered. Tasting will later determine whether I actually got the burnt honey ice cream, or they’ve given me two fior di latte. Not that it matters. The fior is pretty much everything you could ever ask for. Imagine a milky perfect vanilla.

Now it’s only when I’m paying that it transpires there’s yet another menu. Beside the window. Coffees and teas on it. I look behind. Too late to order anything. Oh, and now I notice they have chocolate sprinkles, milk and white, and other geejaws to go on top of the ice-cream.

Come on, people. Up-sell me. I want this stuff. I retreat anyway to the car outside. Climb in. To head home. But this is the antithesis of McDonald’s never-melt. Rivulets are already running. No choice then. I start spooning.

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On the pavement outside now, it’s become a rush, of clustering, milling ice-creamers. Cones bob, tubs are being scooped, it’s a full-fat hand-knitted food rush. It’s so busy, that they’re spilling around my car. That couple there even don’t realise I’m actually in here, their butts reversing slowly car-wards, now hovering above the bonnet, faces buried in cones, now lowering down. They’re going to sit. My elbow’s already on the horn. Temptation.

One press and blobs of blackcurrant cheesecake ice cream will be mortar-bombing the queue. But that would be bad karma. So I turn instead towards my salted pistachio. Settle back. This is, at £3, a very generously filled tub.

Outstanding ice-cream. OK it’s proper gelato actually (Google it). Made, according to some stuff I read on the internet anyway, by an Italian lady. The very glam name of this parlour prompting an Italian YouTuber to enthusiastically salute her simply for that. From Italy.

Next? Roast apricot. Orangey golden, sweetly chewy studs, nuggets of real fruit, all deliciously dribbly and therefore made with a proper refreshing milk base. Flawless. Technically? I should know a thing or two about ice cream.

My Nonno made and sold it in his cafe on Glasgow’s Royston Road. My old man made his own too. Childhood was a back shop filled with air charged with vanilla, milk glugging into stainless vats, will-it-won’t-it-work compressors being fired up then chugging away, lunchtimes spent running from primary school to help serve the rush. I am, then, a third-generation ice cream maker.

Except, I’m not. I’m hopeless at it. Tried. Failed. Got no T-shirt.

Infamous also to my family for a once never-to-be-forgotten exclamation, in Italy of all places: ice cream is ice cream. Let me put it on the record then. Ice cream is not just ice cream. Try the gelato here. You will see exactly what I mean.

LA GELATESSA

38 Nithsdale Road

Glasgow, G41 2AN

Menu: It’s not ice-cream it’s gelato, and that’s all about the milk. Stunning, interesting not-cliched flavours, crafted with great care. 5/5

Atmosphere: Cute not kitsch, stark not bare, a doll’s house of an ice-cream parlour hidden on Glasgow’s south side. 4/5

Service: Honestly, they could be a bit less modest, up-sell a bit more, tell their story – which is a good one. Nice though. 4/5

Prices: I paid £3 a well-filled tub, complete bargain. They have other stuff but I failed to notice it. 5/5

Food: I’ll go back for the salted pistachio, to try the blackcurrant cheesecake; this is so good it makes the Scottish weather irrelevant. 9/10

Total: 27/30