What to Eat in Birmingham

If you’re a blog fan, you know well how much we love dessert, especially ice cream and gelato. And interestingly, aside from Scoops (which we recently wrote about, leading to a 5 pound weight gain during our efforts to try every flavor), and an occasional special gelato at one of our city’s more upscale restaurants (mmmmmm Bettola), this town doesn’t have a lot of gelato.

So a few weeks ago, when we saw a cart during one of our routine trips to Pepper Place Farmer’s Market advertising artisan gelato, we had to try it. Here’s the cart, which parks in the parking lot by Cantina and Bettola:

We had stumbled upon Birmingham’s first and only dedicated gelato purveyor! Yes, please!

Love the branding. In speaking to one of the scoopers, we learned the origin of the name. It was the college nickname of owner Nick Ianuzzi. We were too focused on the gelato to ask our usual nosy questions, but their website says that Nick studied under an Italian master gelato maker.
Here’s the menu. Small and focused, which we love:

We tried every flavor, and ultimately settled on a small order of half chocolate/hazlenut and mixed berry. The chocolate hazelnut was rich and creamy, the perfect complement to the light and tart mixed berry. A-mazing.

Look at that gelato, melting slightly in the hot Alabama summer. If you aren’t developing a craving right now, well, then, that’s more gelato for the rest of us.

We obviously returned the next week for more gelato. It seemed the word had gotten out:

This time, we tried the chocolate/hazelnut (which we couldn’t live without) paired with the custard, a sweet, creamy, egg-based flavor. Perfect.

Don’t forget to ask for their rewards card! I meant to take a picture of ours, which has a lot of punches in it already.

They told me they would be at Pepper Place all June – what’s better than gelato to cool down while shopping? (They’re also conveniently located next to one of those misting stations.) After that, I would check their Facebook and insta.