Long before he opened Una Pizza Napoletana – first in New Jersey and later in Manhattan – pizzeria owner and chef Anthony Mangieri grew up hearing about his grandfather’s chocolate and ice cream shop in Maplewood, New Jersey. Three-flavor Spumoni was a best seller at the shop that ran from 1924 until 1959, but Mangieri says he always gravitated toward the Cremolata – a vanilla gelato with toasted almonds – which often is paired with cherry and pistachio to create Spumoni.

“Cremolata is usually one of the three flavors. It’s deeply connected to my childhood; something that Italian Americans in the Northeast grow up eating is Spumoni,” he tells Pizza Today. The nostalgia frequently drives Mangieri to include Almond Cremolata on his dessert menu, along with a rotating sorbetto made from juice freshly squeezed each morning.

He believes summer is the best season for dessert, since so many fruits reach peak ripeness during the summer months and can be incorporated into sorbet, gelato, pies and other sweet treats. With around 75 percent of customers at Una Pizza Napoletana choosing to end their meals with dessert, Mangieri is certainly on to something.

Italian Ice in the Rockies

Jason Dascoli toyed with the idea of offering shaved ice made to order at Superior, Colorado-based Rock City Pie & Ice. He realized, however, that each serving of shaved ice would differ based on who was pouring the syrup, leaving the result up to chance.

“It’s like pouring drinks at a bar. Unless you have a system that is monitoring everything you pour, you’re going to get different pours,” he says. “I wasn’t going to be able to control the flavor profile as much as I would like for consistency.”

Dascoli grew up eating Italian ice in Long Island, but the cold dessert is not popular on menus in Colorado, despite a growing number of consumers trying to avoid dairy. “I never could find a good one here, so I decided to make it on my own,” Dascoli says.

After experimenting with an ice cream machine owned by a fellow tenant in a shared kitchen, Dascoli eventually purchased the machine, and he now makes fresh Italian ice every week, with flavors including black cherry, blue raspberry, chocolate, coconut, grape, lemonade, mango, orange cream, root beer, strawberry and wild cherry.

To create the dessert, Dascoli adds flavored syrup to a food-grade container, followed by cold water; then, he folds in sugar and lets the mixture sit overnight in a walk-in cooler until the sugar is completely dissolved. He gives the chilled liquid a good stir before using an old-school batch freezer to complete the process. He says the Italian ice is creamy, sweet and pre-portioned so customers can grab their desired flavor out of a cooler next to the counter.

“It’s more popular all the time. We pretty much sell ice with almost every ticket. When it’s cold out, you’d be blown away by the amount of Italian ice we sell,” he says. “I joke that my favorite ticket is when someone comes in and buys one Italian ice for $5 because it’s unique.”

Fresh-squeezed Sorbetto

Back in New York City, Almond Cremolata is on the menu at Una Pizza Napoletana almost every night, but the sorbetto (a frozen, dairy-free dessert) changes daily based on which juice is freshly squeezed each morning. Mangieri says he aims to use fruit that is local and in-season, such as New Jersey blueberries, which achieve peak ripeness from mid-June to late July.

As in Colorado, Mangieri says dessert sales remain relatively consistent throughout the year, though he does see an uptick in traffic when the restaurant posts on social media about sorbetto featuring locally sourced fruit. He encourages the serving staff to sample each day’s flavor, so they are prepared to discuss it with customers.

“In summer, we have access to such beautiful fruit at the peak of ripeness. I always believe what creates the best dishes is using the best ingredients at their peak. For example, in New York in the summer, we have berries, melons and stone fruits,” Mangieri says, adding that he occasionally imports Sorrento lemons to create lemon sorbetto and incorporates non-traditional flavors such as corn.

As for the Almond Cremolata, it is served in Italian ice cream cups with homemade whipped cream and a piece of candied orange peel from Sicily. The high-end dessert is accompanied by a small spoon as a nod to the grand cafes of Southern Italy.

KATE LAVIN is Senior Editor of Pizza Today.