Anatomy of: gelato

Gelato’s creation myths abound. But, whether you believe the confection was created in Florence for the Medici family, the original Gambinos with impeccable tastes, or brought to Italy by Arabs (who had learned it from the Chinese), it is a universal truth that this dolce fantastico is among the world’s great desserts.

Los Angeles can’t get enough gelato. All the dedicated stores—Bulgarini in Altadena, Pazzo in Silverlake, even indie-fave Scoops (which has concocted some kind of modern gelato-hybrid, among other things)—that have debuted in the last several years are evidence of that. And while we don’t play favorites, Gelato Bar is considered one of the city’s premier gelato outlets—and rightly so.

At the Studio City shop, the scene is enhanced by a whimsical (read: almost silly) little indoor fountain, a lovely set of outdoor chairs and tables, and a staff of gelato-scoopers with alluring accents. Of course, the scoop itself is pretty remarkable: A variety of 24 fantastically vibrant flavors of gelati and sorbetti is offered at any given time.

Our enthusiasm, however, doesn’t blind us to the obvious fact that Gelato Bar’s product isn’t made on the premises—the space is way too small for that. Our queries for the gelato maker, however, have a much better result; we’re directed to Alessandro Fontana, an Italian native and gelato obsessive, who ended up in L.A. on a whim three years ago when he came on vacation, fell in love with a local girl and decided to stick around.

Fontana now works in an anonymous warehouse in Burbank, mixing 50-60 gelato batches every day. He has a repertoire of about 60 flavors, but chooses the day's blends based on the orders he receives, the season, and his mood. “If you want to make gelato, you have to like good stuff,” says Fontana.

As a teen he spent a summer working at a fruit warehouse, which taught him the ins and outs of produce, least of all, knowing how and when to pick a good piece of fruit. That includes knowing that while fresh strawberries make better gelato than frozen, frozen blackberries, blueberries and raspberries are always preferable (even if they’re in season) for purer color and bolder flavor.

Like much of Italian cuisine, gelato philosophies are fiercely regional: Egg yolks and cream make a richer product in the north while the southern parts, most notably Sicily, eschew such ingredients altogether. Though Fontana hails from the dairy-embracing region of Veneto, he relies on a minimalist, eggless recipe that allows for purity of flavor. Using a paste or powder from Italy’s famed Prodotti Stella as a base, Fontana adds the featured flavoring component—be it hazelnut, pistachio, chocolate or vanilla—milk, sugar, a touch of vegetable fiber for texture, and a trace amount of cream so small it doesn’t have to be reported.

Once the ingredients are in place, the process is simple. The laboratory holds two types of machines: one for the initial mixing; the other for beating it to the right consistency and lowering the temperature to a point just above freezing. This is how gelato gets its signature rich and dense texture without all the butterfat typically found in American premium ice cream. (For comparison: Butterfat content in gelato ranges from 4-7 percent while Fosselman’s unapologetically boasts a whopping 16 percent.

Gelato making is a mixture of science and art: the Da Vinci of sweets. Fontana believes that to understand gelato, “you have to go back to chemistry…sugars, freezing levels, melting points.” And when he’s not focusing on that, he’s busy creating those lovely curls and whirls that top the containers full of gelato, a delicate spatula dance he learned in Italy.

Everything in the Burbank lab comes as close to Italian authenticity as possible, though health department regulations and American values make for a few key changes. Where gelato containers are traditionally made of metal, here they must be plastic. The $20,000 machines must be thorough washed out between each use, another mandated safety measure. “I had never heard of a peanut allergy before I came here,” Alessandro mused. “In Italy, we don’t wash the machines between flavors. We start in the morning with lemon, and the last flavor is chocolate. Light color and flavor to heavy.”

In another concession to U.S. culture, Fontana spends a good deal of time making sorbetto, the dairy-free, no-added-sugar version of gelato. Though it is an Italian creation, “More people in the US have heard of sorbetto than in Italy.” Thigh-obsessed Americans will be happy to learn of Fontana’s apricot sorbetto, an unusual, delicately perfumed variety. Classic favorites of hazelnut, coffee, coconut and pistachio all please our discriminating tastes, but it was the Veneziana, an ode to Fontana’s home region that’s a bittersweet symphony of candied orange peel and dark chocolate, that has become our dessert obsession.

Though he’ll make sorbetto for us wacky Americans, Alessandro draws the line at non-traditional methods and ingredients. There's talk that any day now he’ll be moving into a bigger facility he’ll share with Pazzo, but the two gelatai (gelato-makers) won’t be sharing anything but walls. Pazzo’s hipster product is made with new-fangled ingredients and generous amounts of cream, which Fontana’s traditionalism has no use for. “I like their product… but I prefer Italian gelato,” he says.

How do you say “throwdown” in Italian?

Katherine Spiers is a contributing editor for Metromix Los Angeles.