Shopping, Quick Stops & Ice Cream
Roberto Benigni put it really well in Jim Jarmusch’s film “Down by Law”, making his cellmates excitedly chant with him “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” And we couldn’t agree more, not just now, with the rising temperatures, but all year round. And how could we not, when we talk about great quality ice cream, authentic gelato, made with the purest ingredients by people who are passionate about creating amazing flavours.
Visiting one of the following gelaterias in Athens and having a scoop – if you can stop at just one – of their incredibly tasty ice creams will have you agree with Roberto Benigni.
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Morris Brown
It’s sweet torture watching your server stir the ice cream, again and again, before placing the scoop on a crispy cone at Morris Brown. Though you can’t wait for them to stop stirring it, you also can’t help admiring the great care put in achieving the best possible result. They stir the ice cream in order to remove the air so that the texture is perfect for you to enjoy. The owner and brain behind Morris Brow, Mrs Renata Alepoudea, has left nothing to chance, teaching her staff everything she learned at the Gelato University in Bologna. 9 years after she opened her first gelateria in Nea Penteli’s square, she keeps evolving the flavours while maintaining the highest quality.
You can taste her passion and enthusiasm for what she does in the ice cream. The full-flavoured sorbets are made using Greek seasonal fruit, apart from the pineapple and mango that are imported and available all year round. The Lila Pause flavour takes you back to your childhood without being too sweet, balancing the tartness of strawberry with the sweetness of white chocolate. Have a scoop of Double Caramel with truffles, with one of the scrumptious brownies, with a slice of sokolatopita (moist chocolate cake), or with a slice of “mosaic” (Greek chocolate salami) all prepared daily in-store, exactly like the ice cream. They make quantities for a day, so every day the ice cream is fresh. The owner is adamant on that, as well as on the percentage of fat and sugar contained in the ice cream, and also never uses artificial colourings and preservatives. If you try the Chocolate or the Pistachio flavours you’ll see for yourselves what this means.
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Le Greche
Evi Papadopoulou takes us on a trip throughout Italy with her unique gelato, that also features a Greek element, as she combines select Italian and Greek ingredients. A trip to Italy was the beginning of Le Greche’s sweet story, with the owner daring to make a bold change in her career and from a teacher become an ice cream maker. She studied in Brescia, where she learned the secrets of Italian patisserie and authentic gelato, revolutionizing the way we think about ice cream in Greece and introducing the Greek public to a wide variety of flavours that were new to Greece.
The boards at the stores inform you on the available seasonal flavours each, together with the classics that we can’t get enough of. Chocolate (strictly Valrhona) with rum and plums, Chocolate and aromatic orange from Lakonia, Mascarpone with caramelised figs from Korinthos, incredible Pavlova with meringue and forest fruits, refreshing lemon and mint sorbet with lemons from Argos, and very aromatic Anthotiro with bergamot and Aperol. It won’t be easy to choose, but after tasting the ice cream, you’ll agree with us that Evi Papadopoulou is the great lady of Greek gelato.
La Mole
The story of this authentic gelateria follows a reverse course, since the owner and master gelataio Marco Mure, left Italy for Pefki, bringing the art and delicious flavours of Italy to Greece from his hometown, Torino. The name is a tribute to Torino’s landmark, the Mole Antonelliana tower. Inside the elegant space, decorated in shades of grey and orange, you’ll find exquisite Italian desserts and top-quality ice cream all year round.
The more than 50 flavours change depending on ingredient seasonality and all of them are made from scratch and don’t contain any artificial colourings or preservatives. You must try the ice cream version of the most famous product of Piedmont, the Hazelnut Chocolate cake with Gianduja, either alone or as a base for other amazing flavours like Dolce Nera that combines it with raspberries. The Baba au Rum flavour is also excellent, taking you directly to Naples, as well as the Cannolo Siciliano, that takes you to Sicily, while the Zuppa Inglese and the Zabaglione are authentic Italian flavours that make you feel like you’re in Italy having ice cream at a gelateria there.
Solo Gelato
You don’t need to see the 1st place award at the European Ice Cream Championship in Berlin in 2012 on the wall of Solo Gelato, to know that they make great ice cream here. You just need to try the fresh gelato that Mr Nikos Hristogiorgos – third generation ice cream maker – makes daily, using his grandfather’s recipes, combining Greek and Italian ingredients. Kaimaki (traditional ice cream flavour made with mastic and salep) is made in the traditional way using salep and mastic from Chios while the pistachios and hazelnuts come from Sicily and Piedmont and all are turned into exceptional ice creams that you must try.
There are no colourings or preservatives in the sorbets, just fresh seasonal fruit, and they go perfectly with the Extra Black Chocolate. Chocolate lovers will also enjoy two versions of white chocolate, one with lemon and one with rose, while you can’t leave without trying their signature flavours, Crema Solo Gelato with almonds and Amaretto liquor and Veneziana Chocolate with rum and chocolate chunks. Don’t worry about their big portions, all ice creams here only contain 5% fat, while for those on a diet there are also options with stevia or agave syrup.
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Kokkion
Great things are created in this tiny ice cream shop on Protogenous street, near Monastiraki square. More particularly, incredible ingredient combinations make unique ice creams, as a result of Vasilis Papamattheos’, the owner, and his team’s experimentations and desire to constantly evolve. His tenure in patisserie abroad, mainly in France, has definitely contributed to the great results achieved, but the importance placed on ingredients is equally crucial.
EVOL milk, real chocolate, ingredients from countries of the Mediterranean, as well as from exotic countries, all combine creatively to give delicious flavours, truly surprising: pepper is added to the chocolate-orange, and it couldn’t suit it more, strawberry chunks are added to white chocolate, while dark chocolate is combined with forest fruit. They make their own mascarpone cheese, adding molasses and bergamot for another perfect flavour. As for their amazing Almond Parfait with roasted cocoa, black rum and mango, its rich and, at the same time, light, aromatic flavour will blow your mind.
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Ninnolo
Launching a new location, returning to where it first started, the bright Ninnolo tempts us and refreshes us with flavours that arrive daily from its workshop. The smiling staff will willingly talk you through the available flavours that change frequently, explaining that most Ninnolo ice cream ingredients come from Italy, while the ice cream never contains eggs, cream or butter. Their ice cream is gelato artigianale with a full, light flavour. Depending on the season, you’ll find amazing fruit sorbets – like Fig which we can’t wait for each summer.
Try the Brownies Mascarpone, the rich Pistachio to which you can add nuts as a topping, and the very Italian Crema della nonna, inspired by the popular torta della nonna, with the rich cream. The orange they add to this particular flavour leaves a delicate aftertaste. If you’re feeling hungry, you can have your ice cream with a delectable, freshly made waffle or with airy pancakes that are worth trying.
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Waffle House
Speaking of waffles, our mind naturally goes to the beloved Waffle House that constantly surprises us with its great ice cream flavours. Their ice cream is great served in their tasty cones, but, of course, it’s also perfect served on a buttery, steamy waffle or in a bowl of mini waffles. Their flavours include scrumptious Tsoureki with tsoureki (traditional sweet bread made usually for Easter) chunks and almonds, Italian cream with waffle chunks, the satisfying Peanut cookie toffee bar with homemade chocolate cookie chunks and butter caramel, the Mosaic (traditional Greek chocolate salami) etc.
Their list is impressive and their imagination endless. Another great flavour is Aegean Sea Salt that is cream with couverture chocolate chunks, pistachio and salt and transports you to their Naxos branch, while the 3 Island Chocolate with citrus from Naxos, mastic from Chios and Pistachio from Aegina takes you on a trip around Greece. One of the flavours that’s truly addictive and you must try is the Mavrodafni wine Chocolate with almonds.
L’Arte del Gelato
L’ Arte del Gelato’s chocolate ice creams are simply exquisite and that’s one of the reasons you’ll see queues in front of the display with the large metal containers that change depending on what the workshop, at the back of the store, prepares each day. We recommend the Othello Chocolate with homemade cookies chunks and salted caramel sauce, while occasionally you’ll find Chocolate with Amarena Cherries, Cinnamon-Chocolate and Chestnut-Chocolate. They offer the same flavour combinations in cream, with the great Fior di Latte gelato as their base. Fior di Latte is great on its own as well, and it’s always a great example of well-made Italian style ice cream.
We were lucky to be offered a glimpse of their recipe book and it was truly impressive: almond with tangerine or pear with chestnut combine fresh fruit with nuts, Italian Zabaglione is also made with chocolate and orange here, pink pepper and rose is added to the refreshing Melon sorbet, and each season we have a new reason to enjoy their fresh gelato.
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Epik
Each scoop of Epik ice cream contains the tastiest ingredients from all over Greece. In this tiny gelateria, squeezed between the popular Mavili square spots, you’ll find top quality ice cream inspired by the traditional desserts of the Greek islands, made using the best ingredients from Greek producers, in creative and also classic flavours.
The Rose-Loukoumi flavour is made with Sikourtis loukoumia (Turkish delight) from Syros, rose spoon sweet and coconut, and is an explosion of flavour, while the wild fig spoon sweet from Ikaria is combined with katiki cheese from Domokos for the Fig-Katiki flavour.
The familiar, summer taste of the almond sweets from the Cyclades is reproduced perfectly in the Amigdaloto flavour that contains rose water. All the nuts used are sourced from Greece, the chocolate is ION, while the milk comes from the Timios Stavros monastery. The sugar free flavours they offer are quite rich, while the Lenten Kaltsouni Androu flavour is simply delicious. If the above flavours are making it too hard to choose, or if you’re into more classic flavours, choose an Epik cone with Kaimaki ice cream covered in pistachio from Aegina and fresh whipped cream, it’s a truly epic experience.
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Oggi
Their amazing tiramisu alone is enough to sweetly haunt your summer dreams. The lovely espresso they use and the cacao they sprinkle it with before serving make it smell exquisitely. The mascarpone – and the ricotta used in their scrumptious Pulcinella – comes straight from Puglia, where the best fresh cheese in Italy is made, every Wednesday. The selection of the best Italian ingredients and the authentic technique is unnegotiable for the Gikopoulou-Ntoura family that studied next to grand masters of Italy.
The certificates on the wall prove that the chocolate comes from Montica, Sicily, and the hazelnut from Piedmont, while the authentic ice cream maker in the centre of Oggi is further proof, though the actual ice cream, inside the cylinder containers are all the proof you’re going to need. The Biscotto flavour made with fresh milk and soft cookies, baked daily, filling the elegant shop on Voulis street with their scent, is great, as is the Pistachio and Hazelnut, while as summer approaches, more and more sorbet options are offered. Don’t waste any time, try their ice cream oggi. That is today.
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Django
If ice cream is art, then it would be no exaggeration to say that Django is its temple. And now we don’t need to travel to Syros to try the unique flavours that Konstantinos Karakatsanis, who’s been an ice cream maker since he was 17, makes. We can just visit the Koukaki neighbourhood. In the bright space of the Athenian branch, that promotes zero waste, the knowledgeable staff and the owner will not only explain the philosophy behind each flavour, but they will also recommend the best flavour combination to showcase each flavour’s intensity and fullness. The strawberry sorbet with the seeds that make you forget you’re having ice cream, goes great with the yogurt sorbet that has a bit of lemon, and the 70% cocoa Aztec chocolate with almonds and cinnamon is a perfect match with Crema Catalana that contains citrus fruit. Fruits like lemon and tangerine become refreshing sorbets, Quince is perfectly combined with cinnamon and anise, and fig becomes a marmalade to go with the pistachio in the oriental kaimaki.
It’s a joy talking with Mr Karakatsani about flavours and combinations, and his enthusiasm is contagious. I hear him politely correct me, saying that we should not combine pistachio with chocolate because “it’s like two kings competing with each other”, and so, I agree to try just the pistachio. PDO Pistachio from Aegina with plain or salted chunks of pistachio, that balances sweetness with mildly savoury; a flavour that will make you go back to Django for more. And an exclusive scoop: soon shooting for a Hollywood documentary on Django’s exquisite ice creams and Konstantinos decision to change career path to do what he really loves will be completed.
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