If you like gelato and avoiding tourist traps, then you have come to the right article! If you dislike bad gelato and hate tourist traps, then you are like me, and it is good that you are still reading! If you keep reading further, you will be enlightened by learning how to spot bad gelato while you are visiting Italy. I am a big advocate for eating a daily gelato in Italy, however, it must be good gelato!

Fast Fun Facts & Statistics

To start, I’m going to lay out some fast facts (they’re fun, too) and stats about gelato and Italy. In Italy, gelato is served at the “gelateria”, the Italian version of an ice cream parlor or shop. Gelaterie (plural of Gelateria) are sprinkled everywhere throughout Italy, from the biggest cities to the smallest towns and borghi (small, beautiful Italian villages). If you feel like you’re running into gelaterie everywhere you go in Italy and are beginning to wonder if it’s your brain messing with you – since they seem to be everywhere – it’s not! While there are approximately 17,000 ice cream-serving businesses in the entire United States, there are a whopping 39,000 gelato establishments in Italy. For Italy, that comes out to one gelateria per 3 square miles (7.77km^2) and one gelateria per 1,666 people!

Let’s Get Our Spoons In!

Great, so now we’re all aware that it’s no coincidence you’re running into gelato everywhere you go in Italy. With our minds now chilled, we can jump into the tips and I can give you the full scoop (yes, puns).

Right off the bat, if the gelato is stored out of sight and in tubs inside the counter itself, that’s a good sign! It means the gelateria is taking great care of maintaining a cold ambient temperature for the gelato to sit in. It’s also a way to say to those who are in the know, that they don’t have to put the gelato on display to attract customers and entice them. Though it’s not necessarily a bad thing if the gelato is kept under glass and on display for customers to see and ogle at, there are a few things to look for and take notice of:

  • What colors are you seeing? How vibrant are they? Good gelato is made to be dull in color. A good benchmark gelato to use is pistachio (one of my personal favorites!). Is the pistachio very green and bright? If so, stay away! Pistachio gelato wants to be a dull greenish color, you could say even gray-green, it shouldn’t pop out at you. If the pistachio is super bright green and the lemon is so yellow that you need sunglasses to look at it, the gelateria you’re standing in is not the one for you.

Check out the color of this pistachio!
  • How high is the amount of gelato in its storage container? Gelaterie serving good quality gelato are also going to want to store their gelato well and preserve its goodness in the best possible way. If there’s a mountain of gelato in the tub, reaching far above the top of the tub/container (let’s call this the Cold Line) and rivaling Mont Blanc for the tallest peak in Italy, it’s in your taste buds’ best interest to reconsider your gelateria. Well-kept gelato won’t be kept in overflowing tubs, but rather the level of gelato won’t go past the Cold Line (or at least now very far above it). Any gelato sitting above the Cold Line isn’t being cooled properly, and it won’t taste as good.

Look at those cold lines!
  • Are there lots of fruits, nuts, and decorations distracting you or even obstructing you from fully seeing the gelato? You’re probably gonna have a bad time eating there. I think there’s a little more leeway when it comes to the nutty gelato, but in general, avoiding gelaterie that have tons of fruits, decor, and junk on top of the gelato is a good idea. If the banana gelato has a dozen bananas sticking each and every way and has banners and flags like it just graduated college, the gelato is probably not the best quality.

  • Does it smell like the real fruits, nuts, and foods that the gelato is flavored after are right there in front of you? That’s a good sign! The smells of the various gelato should be obvious to you. If you ask to sample a raspberry gelato and it smells just like it, it’s probably gonna taste good.

There are a few things to consider and ways to evaluate the gelato as you’re eating it, but I’m not going to get into them in this article. Tastes and likes are subjective and vary so you can decide for yourself if you like the gelato and if you think it’s good. It would be weird if you didn’t like it and I was telling you it was amazing, right?

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