Wednesday,
May 02, 2007
Katie Couric's
Favorite Gelato now in
The
ANNOTICO Report
Wait.
Let me get used to the name "Grom" for
an ITALIAN Gelato. It sounds Russian. That doesn't get me in the mood. It
doesn't transport me, or help me enjoy a fantasy. It happens to be one of the partners surnames, and is short, and easy, BUT........
Then
I'm a little "off put" if my Italian Chef is Jose, or my Chinese chef
is Sven. :) :)
Gelato
as most of you know differs from ice cream in that gelato contains contains far less air and butterfat. And it is often called
artisanal that differentiates the custom made,
natural ingredients, daily produced, quality creation from the industrialized
production of ice creams. And please don't confuse it with sorbets, ices
or sherbets, that fall into an entire different
category.
AromidItalia, Palazzolo's, MonteBianco, VillaDolce Gelato
are some of the largest gelato distributors in the
By Gabrielle Birkner
Staff Reporter of the Sun
May 1, 2007
The
artisanal gelato that has Italians queuing up in Turin,
On
Saturday, Grom, a rapidly expanding chain of
all-natural ice cream and sorbet shops, will open its first location outside Italy, on Broadway at
Launched
four years ago by a pair of childhood friends from Turin, Grom
now boasts two gelaterias in that city and eight
other stores in northern and central Italy. The owners, Federico Grom, 34, and
Grom already has one famous fan here in
Gelato,
made of a whole milk and sugar base, is generally denser than American-style
ice cream and contains less air and butterfat.
Like
many good ideas, the Grom concept was born over
beers. "I said, No one makes gelato come una
"We
started talking about starting a gelato store, making gelato with all of the
best ingredients from all over the world," Mr. Grom
said. "It was like a joke."
But
a week later, Mr. Grom had drafted a five-year
business plan to open gelato stores throughout
Messrs.
Grom and Martinetti and
their respective girlfriends take frequent trips to seek out fruits, nuts, and
chocolate products for their gelato. They purchase lemons from the Amalfi coast, pistachios from
The
gelateria offers about 20 flavors, and the menu
changes seasonally. The most popular flavor, available year-round, is Grom Cream, which has an egg cream base mixed with corn
biscuits from a Piedmont bakery and chocolate flakes from
A
cup of the creamy dessert comes at a price: $4.75 for a small portion, which
the owners said contains 8 to 10 grams of fat, depending on the flavor. Larger
servings sell for $5.75, $6.75, and $9, respectively.
While
Americans have a love affair with ice cream they consume more than 1.5 billion
gallons of ice cream and related frozen desserts a year, International Dairy
Foods Association statistics show gelato is in its infancy stateside. But a
food-marketing consultant with Technomic, Joseph Pawlak, said Italian ice cream is quickly gaining a
foothold in the dessert market, as Americans become more adventurous and
sophisticated eaters. "What we're seeing is people moving away from value
products and consuming premium or superpremium
products," he said. "They figure that if they're going to cheat, if
they're going to indulge, they're going to get the good stuff."
Messrs.
Grom and Martinetti said
they are optimistic that their idea will be successful in
The president of
the Gelato & Pastry Institute of America, Andrew Seabury, who has tasted Grom gelato, said he thought that the dessert would win
over discerning palates in the neighborhood and beyond. "They're going for
the highest end of the market, using natural and organic products to produce
what they would claim, and many would agree, is the highest-quality
product," he said. "It's outstanding."
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