There is a lot of gelato in Italy. In fact, there is a lot of gelato in this part of the world. But my knees go weak for Venchi. We have been travelling around the Mediterranean and it’s summer. I remember my first trip to Italy. I was visiting a very good friend who was on an extended stay. She was, and still is, my best friend from primary school. She was born in Italy and is fluent in the Italian language. I am not. It was the middle of winter when we traveled together and it didn’t matter, I distinctly remember that the first phrase she taught me as a response to “gelato?” was “perché no?”, literally “why not?”. This turns out to have been a fundamental life lesson as it still rings true today. Venchi, it turns out, is one of the best.
Behind the counter of Venchi, this Italian marvel of a chocolate empire, is a molten chocolate wall. We have been in Rome a few days and walked past the shop, seen the lines and dismissed it. Anything that you have to line up for that long with two hot and tired children in tow can’t be worth it. Can it? Then my husband went for a walk one evening and tried it. Yes, it is worth it.
The flavors are separated, on the menu only, into chocolate, cream and fruit. Of course, I can’t decide. Usually, I’m a lemon sorbet kind of girl but today there is Azteco and Cuordi Cacao chocolate, nougatine and Bronte pistachio to choose from. Luckily there is a long line and I have time to decide. In the end I settle on four: lemon and strawberry sorbets sandwiched by Aztec chocolate and nougatine. It’s huge and I feel a mix of ever-so-slightly guilty and ever-so-totally indulgent that the boys aren’t here to share it with me. It’s rare to have an ice cream all to myself!
I sit in the shop. There are not many seats and it’s so busy but as I am by myself I manage to squeeze in between a family trying to stop ice cream from soaking their toddler and a group of friends that alternate momentary silences as they lick up their flavours one by one. There are no single gelatos here. It seems no one is able to choose just one.
I savor mine. The nougartine is on top. It’s insanely good – creamy, chocolatey, slightly nutty and gooey all at the same time. The sorbets are predictably good. No Italian gelato house would be worth its salt if it didn’t produce an excellent lemon sorbet – tangy but just sweet enough and slightly salty. The strawberry is like eating a plate of Spring. It reminds me of picking strawberries from our garden as a little girl. Or, more recently, a trip to a strawberry farm on the Sunshine Coast where we ate strawberry everything for a week afterwards. Last but not least, the Aztec chocolate. Divine. Dark, creamy, bitter, sweet, rich. And then it’s gone.
I look around blinking as if I’ve been on a journey and just woken up here. But of course, I have. This is the beauty of an indulgence such as this. Something special that can take you away from the now, even just for a few minutes, and transport you to places of pleasure.
Venchi is just that. Perhaps that is why so many deem it worth waiting in line for. I’ll be lining up again too, next chance I get.
Would I Return
Yes. Venchi originated as a gourmet chocolate manufacturer, founded by chocolatier Silvano Venchi in Turin in 1878. The company’s foray into gelato is much more recent but no less successful.
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