The best ice cream (gelato) shops in Bologna
- The Introvert Traveler
- 20 minutes ago
- 5 min read
A ghost haunts Bologna, Italy's most woke city, the moral capital of every self-styled progressive battle, an impregnable fortress of students who don't know what to fight against but fight it anyway, a bastion of intersectionality, second only to Naples for bicycle thefts. This ghost is artisanal gelato, traditional, bourgeois, reactionary; no one has ever dared to use the feminine form or spell it with the schwa; not even the most fanatical feminist would dare challenge this legacy of Italian gastronomic culture, demanding that this creamy delight be called "la gelata," because it stands turgid, phallic, patriarchal, tickling the soft underbelly of the silent majority and undermining the ideological foundations of the Red City from within.
So let's see which are the best ice cream shops in Bologna "the Fat one".
Sorbetteria Castiglione
Where: Via Castiglione 44/d; but also in Via Saragozza 83
My rating: 10/10
There was a time when Bologna's gelato shops served industrial-strength preparations, and the average quality of gelato in the city was so poor that some people claimed the best gelato could be fount at Capo Nord's. Then, in the early 1990s, it all began: on Via Castiglione, a gelato shop began making artisanal gelato, and nothing was ever the same again. The gelato shop's gelato renounces progressive intellectualism and does the most obvious and bourgeois thing possible: it's good, shamefully good, obscenely good. Creamy and rich, as a dessert should be, it floods your palate with a dull, popular, national roar of triglycerides. Some say it failed to innovate, that it was overtaken by more aggressive and innovative competitors. I don't know... I find Sorbetteria's gelato as delicious as it was the first time I tasted it 30 years ago, when I had an epiphany. My favorite flavors: Sicilian cassata, white like no Netflix series would dare depict and as Sicilian as a Pietro Germi film; zuppa inglese, a typical Bolognese dessert here in gelato form, which dares to display the most colonialist name imaginable ("the English soup"); and Michelangelo cream, an almond delight.
Galliera 49
Where: Via Galliera, 49/B
My rating: 12/10
The guys at Galliera 49 go all out: fair trade ingredients, queer iconography, woke vocabulary, but I'm sorry... every time a Galliera 49 customer tastes one of their gelatos, another militant is removed from the cause of social conflict. Because when you put their zabaglione in your mouth (absit iniuria verbis), a sense of peace and well-being radiates through your veins; when you taste the salted caramel, the revanchism abandons you like a ghost victim of an exorcism; and if any lingering pangs of class rage still vibrate within you, there's the ricotta granita ready to convince you that life is beautiful, like in a Hollywood musical starring Julie Andrews.
Stefino
Where: Via Luigi Serra 3
My rating: 10/10
If Galliera 49 looks like an Arcigay headquarters converted into a gourmet food outlet, Stefino could be a social center transformed into a candy store. At Stefino, syntax doesn't hold up without words like "bio," "vegan," "gluten," "free," "fair trade," "sustainable," and "organic"; remove one of these words and Stefino's entire marketing campaign collapses like a house of cards at the mercy of a Belgian Shepherd puppy. Stefino even moved its headquarters from its original location near Piazza Verdi, the Apache fort of the left-wing university rival, to Bolognina, the reddest stronghold in Bologna "the Red one". But there's nothing you can do about it: try their Indie (dark chocolate with ginger and curry) and you're immediately overcome by a desire for colonial restoration to regain control of the cocoa and East Indian trade routes. You taste wasabi ice cream, close your eyes and dream of being a Portuguese Jesuit sent to Cipango in the 16th century to bring evangelization, while discovering, the first Westerner in history, the spicy taste of the green and exotic radish.
I've been to Stefino's recently too, but I don't have any photos to post because every time I have their product in my hands I consume it before remembering to photograph it.
Cremeria Santo Stefano
Where: Via Santo Stefano 70c
My rating: 9/10
Of the gelaterias I'm mentioning in this post, this is perhaps my least favorite, because none of the flavors on its menu have captivated me, like Sorbetteria's Cassata or Galliera 49's ricotta granita. The menu indulges in very little innovation, focusing entirely on tradition: egg custard, salted pistachio (not from Bronte!), gianduja, and many other chocolate variations. But the artisanal quality of all these flavors is so consistently high that Cremeria has to be included on the list of Bologna's best gelaterias.
Il Gelatauro
Where : Via San Vitale 98b
My rating : 7/10
While I disagree with those who say Sorbetteria is a gelateria that's fallen into disrepair and out of step with the times, I suspect this can be more reasonably said of Gelatauro, which used to be one of my favorite gelaterias in Bologna, but which I now find lagging behind more established competitors like Galliera 49 or Stefino. It still deserves a mention, both for its boldness in creating unusual flavors and for its clear Sicilian influence, starting with its delicious granitas.
Maritozzi e Gelato
Where : Piazza San Francesco 1b
My rating : 9/10
I'll close this brief review by returning to the highest levels. Maritozzi e Gelato, which, if I'm not mistaken, was called Cremeria San Francesco until recently, is superb in every product it makes, from the eponymous maritozzi to pastries like babà, and, of course, their superb gelato. The menu constantly changes with the seasons and is not lacking in bold creativity (like the cacio e pepe or lemon and basil gelato), but the flavor that stole my heart was the chestnut gelato; in fact, it was among the flavors offered by Cremeria San Francesco, which only included it on the menu in the fall when fresh ingredients were available, and I haven't yet tried whether the new management (or it's just a rebranding) makes it. In any case, the quality of Maritozzi e Gelato's offerings is such that you can and should gorge on every one of their products, regardless of the availability of chestnuts. You don't have to fear the results of this sugary indulgence: we're in Woke Bologna, and body-shaming is a crime.
Disclaimer: If this list is missing some top-quality gelato shops, it's because I haven't tried them yet. For the sake of completeness, I'll mention three gelato shops that are consistently cited in guides to Bologna's best gelato shops, but which, in my humble opinion, don't deserve that reputation: Cremeria Cavour, Cremeria Funivia, and Cremeria Vecchia Stalla. They make a good product, but not good enough to be among my favorites.
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