Gigi Gelateria

Posted by Edmund in Boston, Featured Articles, Ice Cream & Gelato | 0 comments

Specialty: Italian Gelato.
Location: 272 Hanover St, Boston, MA.
Price: $12 for a Large (It’s Huge).

When it comes to food, I always trust an Italian. Whether it be pasta, baked goods, or gelato, I almost never have any problems with Italian fare, and the more authentic or old-fashioned it is, the more I tend to like it.

So how a disaster like Gigi Gelateria could even exist is something beyond me. It has all the makings of greatness. First, it’s located right in Boston’s North End, one of America’s most heavily Italian neighborhoods. Second, it’s authentic (or, rather, it seems authentic), with true Italian workers, owners, and customers. It’s so Italian, in fact, that I’ve heard Italian spoken in the café.

Third, the décor is actually quite nice.  There are lights of changing colors reflecting off the wall behind the gelato display and a wall lined with different liquors. The tables are small but very spacious, giving you a feeling of intimacy. The café shows sports games and has some nice decoration of old black-and-white photos from the past, whether it be of different couples or of the store itself.

Finally, and most importantly, this is a gelato store. How do you ruin ice cream? I’ve never really had a scoop of ice cream that I didn’t think was edible, not even from a supermarket variety.

Yet Gigi Gelateria has managed to destroy all of these preconceptions of mine in a single broad stroak, converting the initial veneration for Italian gelato that I developed in Italy into an uneasy hesitance, at least for the type that you get in America. Ever since I explored Italy, Italian gelato has been my favorite take on ice cream/gelato, incorporating only the freshest ingredients and bursting with intense flavors. The texture of Italian gelato is amazing as well—intensely creamy yet light and almost airy—but texture without flavor is dead.

That’s the mistake that Gigi Gelateria makes. The pistachio doesn’t actually taste like pistachio, nor does the tiramisu. Only the Gianduja Torino I tried tasted like anything, and that was largely because hazelnuts were powdered into the batch. Even in this flavor, though, the gelato itself was bland, letting the hazelnut do all the work.

Intensifying these problem is the gelato’s frostiness. Since it’s not defrosted properly, you taste a lot of ice. In turn, the little flavor there is in the gelato is almost entirely suppressed. I’ve had this problem at other stores, but at Gigi Gelateria it’s so marked that I could even hear myself munching on ice.

Even more egregious than the lack of flavor, though, is the price. $12 for a large with 3 flavors? Believe it! This is by far the worst value I’ve ever seen at a gelato/ice cream shop.

There is no need to ramble on about Gigi Gelateria. It’s bad gelato, plain and simple. Avoid it at all costs!

Flavors I Tasted

1. Pistachio: Finally I find the one pistachio in Boston that is actually a pistachio infusion (i.e. the ice cream is green and flavored like pistachio throughout), but the flavor is horrible. This is all the more disappointing because the gelato seems like it would be great. It’s extremely creamy and smooth, so that it melts in your mouth, and it has that nice glue-like, gooey texture that I love in a good gelato. But the flavor is just lacking in almost every way. First, as noted above, the gelato itself is too frosty (not properly defrosted). Second, and just as importantly, the flavor that does come through has a weird tang to it, as though it’s aiming for Italian pistachio, which has a slight salty kick to it, but is missing horribly. Here the flavor just comes out odd and confused, as the nuttiness is too subtle to really be tasted, and all you get is that weird kick at the end, which seems completely out of place. I couldn’t even finish half of it. 0.0/5.0
2. Tiramisu: This one does a better job of delivering on the flavor, but that’s not saying much, as it’s still bland and way too underflavored. The main problem here is just the frostiness, which is so intense (even more so than in the pistachio) that I can actually hear the crunch of the ice (though part of it might also just be a gritty coffee powder that’s likely been mixed into the gelato). Thus, the flavor is almost fully suppressed, and you only get a taste of it in the end, which is a shame because it actually does taste like tiramisu. Especially prominent is the taste of the coffee/espresso, which gives a slight roasted sensation at the end (and by slight, I mean infinitesimal). The texture is about the same as the pistachio’s, being the one positive thing about the gelato. 0.5/5.0
3. Gianduja Torino (Vanilla, Hazelnut, and Chocolate): Finally, a flavor with some ACTUAL FLAVOR—what a novel concept! As expected, the frostiness does detract from the overall taste, but here the issue doesn’t pop up so much, and you get quite a clear hazelnut taste throughout the gelato. It also has a pretty satisfying grittiness to it, as hazelnut is powdered (it’s really small) into the gelato along with small chocolate chunks, so not only do you get a more intense flavor (and trust me, this gelato needs it), but also a rather fresh one. Still, the flavors don’t have much balance, since the hazelnut overpowers. 1.5/5.0

Scores

Ambience: 3.5/5.0 (Not factored into verdict)
Texture: 2.5/5.0.
Taste: 0.5/5.0.
Selection: 2.0/5.0. All the Italian flavors are well-represented, but that’s about it.
Flavor (Integration of Flavor into Ice Cream): 0.8/5.0. Lots of odd flavors, but not always well-integrated into the ice cream.
Value: 0.0/5.0. An absolute rip-off for sub-par gelato.
Verdict: 0.6/5.0. This is an embarrassment to Italian gelato.