Gelatiamo: Sweetening up Seattle, one scoop at a time

April 7th, 2014

Gelatiamo Owner Maria Coassin (pictured left) sat down with Pagliacci Support Central to share her dessert wisdom and sample some sweet cream.

“There’s nothing better in the evening than a pint of ice cream and spoon,” says Maria Coassin, queen of sweet cream and owner of Gelatiamo. As she buzzes around the small kitchen below her gelataria, her enthusiasm fills the space.

You could say that dessert is in Maria’s blood. For more than 200 years, her family has handcrafted baked goods in a small town in northern Italy. Maria came to Seattle with a dream of carrying on a slight variation of that tradition. In 1996, Gelatiamo was born.

Every day, Maria and her small team create nearly 600 liters of creamy gelato for sale in her shop upstairs and for about 40 wholesale partners, including us. Pagliacci sell so many pints and scoops of gelato and sorbet, she has a walk-in freezer dedicated to storing our share before it’s shipped out to our Commissary for distribution to our locations.

“Hazelnut is my favorite of all the seasonal flavors Pagliacci carries,” she purrs excitedly as she shows us a tub of puréed hazelnuts that will be used for flavoring her gelato. “It’s one of the most luxurious flavors out there. It’s so silky and delicate and cool in your mouth.”

To get an authentically Italian flavor, she sources hazelnuts from the Piedmont region in Italy. And if you stop into her shop for a scoop of Hazelnut, she’ll insist that you pair it with the citrus burst of Lemon Sorbet like true Italians do.

“In Italy it’s about all about beauty in everything: the buildings, the art, the music, the people, the clothing, everything. I wanted to make sure I transferred a sense of true Italian culture into my product, and this product is so artful.”

Peering across the row of brightly colored cream in the gelato case and listening to her wax poetic about dessert, our group is entranced and ready to dig in.

With our April Frequent Pie-er you can order a pint of Gelatiamo gelato or sorbet and get a second pint for half off. If you’re skeptical about Maria’s Lemon and Hazelnut combination (trust us, it’s really good!), Hazelnut and Chocolate are made for each other.