L'Arte del Gelato
One of the earliest suggestions I got for this blog was to just be the lone "I shit on it all" type of food blogger. By the way, if you're out there and aspiring to make a name for yourself, there you go. Free idea. Shit on every single restaurant you eat at, I guarantee you the NYC food blogosphere will take note. If you can do it with humor, you might even get a book deal overnight. So I went to L'Arte del Gelato with some high expectations because they've been written about with high regards. I don't think it's my favorite. You all know me, it's hard to get me to not like something unless it's shitty American-Chinese food. But the thing is, after reading about how awesome a place is, it's natural to expect the place to just BLOW YO' MIND. That didn't happen. I don't know why it didn't happen. The last couple of weeks I've been eating a lot of ice cream/gelato/sorbet (for my stomach not for the blog...) Blue Marble, Shake Shack, Momofuku, Grom, il laboratorio del gelato, Uncle Louie G's, Rita's, and most recently popbar. So yea, my frame of reference for ice cream right now is set. So at L'Arte del Gelato I went with coconut and pistachio... and it was...
Weird. The coconut really was off. I'm not sure what it was, but it had an artificial taste to it. Maybe I don't know what coconut taste like, so I asked Steph and she thought it tasted weird too. I liked the pistachio and liked the consistency/smoothness of both flavors. Overall though, I thought it was just ok. After eating ice cream at so many places, I can tell you that you can get creamy consistency at almost all the gelato places. They're not cheap. And almost everyone has good intensity of flavor. The whole thing about mouth-feel and whether it might be icy... it's all moot in my book. They're all pretty good. Fancy ice cream in New York cost an arm and a leg sometimes. Obviously eating this in the West Village, one couldn't expect a super deal... and popbar wasn't a superb deal either. But I guess the going rate for gelato is what it is.
Lastly I want to talk about taking photos in a restaurant or food establishment. Maybe some of you saw what Amateur Gourmet had to say about this subject this week. On nearly every point, I agree with him. There's just one thing on which I care to expound. Basically Adam is too nice. He talks about what some diners say about the photo taking. But he never says this to them. "Yo, shut the fuck up and eat your food." Yea, that's right, I said it. Yo mamma! When I'm sitting down to eat at a restaurant with folks I know... honestly, I'm too busy to care if someone has a mini tripod on their table. Good for you if you're not engaged in listening to your compatriots and all you care about is what I'm doing at my table. You know what's unsightly? It's not my tripod or my ginormous camera. It's stupid bitches with fakes tans, tacky and unnecessarily gaudy jewelry, and Botulism enhanced foreheads. You clowns need to shut the fuck up before I slap you the fuck up because if I'm spending over $100 (or whatever it is for a tasting menu), I'm getting into it. And you should get into it, instead of getting all up in my bidness. Fuckers. Just fuck off people.
L'Arte del Gelato
75 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10014
212-924-0803
I always go for classic flavors. So probably dolce de leche or some such.
Janice
May 27, 2010 9:57 pm
Have you tried cones? I never thought I would trust any non-italians to make gelato, but those guys are quite impressive.
Janice
May 23, 2010 10:41 pm
I tried the Van Leeuwen ice cream truck recently and I was not impressed. Also, the service was bad. They gave my ice cream cone to the other Asian girl next to me. Hello, seriously?
Ang
May 24, 2010 10:46 pm
@Janice,
Once a long long time ago I had cones... I should revisit that one though. These days I feel like places that stay open probably have a few flavors they're good at... and then with other flavors they're just random... what's good at Cones?
@Ang,
We all look alike if you squint a little.
Danny
May 25, 2010 2:18 pm
I think L'arte del Gelato is SOOOO much better than Grom and Il Laboratorio. Last week I decided its definitely the best ice cream in New York. I think the pistachio, however, is a bit off. I wouldn't get it again. I always get 2 flavors, and one of them has to be biscotti.
Meredith
May 21, 2010 11:35 am
Have you had the Fior di latte gelato from Bklyn Larder? HOT DAMN.
Allix
May 21, 2010 1:53 pm
That first shot is just perfect
jae_em
May 21, 2010 1:59 pm
@Meredith,
Awww, see I almost feel like it's about which flavor you get. If one goes around comparing the chocolate gelato at every place, it'd be interesting... chocolate is difficult though, it's easy to get intense dark chocolate and creamy consistency. Wonder what a good baseline is...
Danny
May 21, 2010 2:14 pm
@Allix,
Fior di latte gelato?! That sounds pretty cool. Bklyn Larder gelato is crazy expensive though. Isn't a pint of it like $9 bucks?
@jae_em,
Thanks! :) Glad ya like it
Danny
May 21, 2010 2:15 pm