A few days after I noticed an especially high proliferation of a certain frozen treat along Bleecker, New York Magazine ran a story taste-testing those very treats. (Besides the gelato locations they name, there’s also a “yogurt alley” further south on Bleecker, where Red Mango stares down Pinkberry. Always pick Red Mango.) Anyway, according to NY Mag, the hands-down winner was Grom, an Italian company that has two locations in New York, many more in Italy and absolutely zero in Los Angeles.

The gelato isn’t out in the open at Grom, rather it’s packed into these silver tubs they say make the temperature more accurate (as you know, the secret to great gelato is keeping it at that perfect barely-frozen consistency). So you can’t quite see what you’re getting into; you just have to trust that it’s great because it’s made in Italy, whipped and frozen on site and packed into these pretty silver cylinders. All of this they will tell you as you hem and haw over the Italian-named flavors. My friend Allan chose pistachio. I panicked. There were five different kinds of chocolate.

In a spur-of-the-moment decision, I paired apricot (a flavor I’ve never had before) with Crema di Grom, which has—take a deep breath and clear your palate before reading further—meliga di Battifollo biscuits and Ecuadorian chocolate. I’m a sucker when baked goods and frozen delights collide and with gelato you don’t always get options laid out before you like Cold Stone Creamery mix-ins. This was the right choice with the piquant apricot:  a fancy, transcendant Dreamsicle. And just look at that texture!

I’ve been championing il laboratorio del gelato as New York’s finest, with its simple, seasonal ingredients and the innate charm of being served out of a window on the Lower East Side. The ultraluxurious Grom experience is the opposite:  totally West Village glam. Illustrations around the room explain their dedication to only the most high-class, responsible ingredients from Amalfi Sfusato lemons to the purest Guatemalan Genuina Antigua coffee. Although I had to look at a big poster of a biological egg yolk while I was eating. The chicken-to-gelato connection should not be made.

I will say that Grom has certainly elevated the local gelato market. But is it the best? It’s difficult to say. 15 more visits and I’ll know for sure.

More gelato & everything else.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 9:36 am and is filed under eating, gelatoing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.