Yes, gelatos are created with a lot of effort. No, gelatos are not ice cream. And yes, gelatos are getting saltier! In a free-wheeling conversation, chef and owner of Cream Choc in Anjuna, Goa, Davide Passarella unravels the layers of gelatos.
Image: Courtesy creamchoc.
‘Do not throw your cigarette butt on the ground. We’ve caught the dogs smoking and we’re trying to get them quit.’
Cream Choc. Anjuna. 2.25 pm. Five minutes before the appointed time. The droll warning was the first thing I noticed at the famed gelateria. Then, I saw a brown mongrel snoozing on a butter-scotch coloured bench by the door. Was the snooze cigarette butt-induced? I wanted to ask the dog but, as they say, let sleeping dogs be. That the warning stared diagonally at the Our Lady Of Health Chapel made me chuckle. The dogs, too, need good health!
I sat on an iron chair painted the pink of a strawberry smoothie and waited for Chef/Owner Davide Passarella. An old man in an orange tee was quietly spooning the gelato out of a blue paper cup. “This is just so wonderful,” a woman in spaghetti strap dress was whispering to her companion. Servers in shirts and catering chef hats with gelato colour swirls were walking in and out of the glass door of Cream Choc, the eight-year-old mother store.
To the gelato born
2.30 pm. Exact at the appointed time. Chef Passarella walked in in a pair of magic mint green spectacles, a large tattoo peeping from the hem of his half-sleeved green shirt. “Did you have lunch?” He began with utter thoughtfulness. “Work first,” that’s always my answer.
He pulled up a bubblegum blue chair and began his gelato/life story — a tale that started in Turin (Italy) and traversed through the Americas, and Europe with a denouement in India. In 2000, he first came to India for a holiday, kept returning, and finally started calling Goa his home.
I listened intently.
He was to the gelato born. Kinda. It was in the 14th Century that gelato was officially developed by famous Italian artist and architect Bernardo Buontalenti (1531-1608) — the Italian word ‘gelato’ translates to cold/frozen. Being Italian, Passarella was introduced to the cold dessert very early and by the time he was three, he was an avid gelato-lover.
Professionally, he studied to be a chef and grew up in and out of his family restaurant in Turin. He took to pastry making and then ventured into frozen sweets. He was 22, when he first worked with an ice cream company, returned for a stint at a restaurant kitchen but the process of freezing a liquid and making it tasty was too alluring. Chef Passarella made frozen desserts his love and vocation.
‘Every product is what and who the chef is’
Listening to Chef Passarella is like watching a film — he jumps from one frame to another, interspersing it with metaphors, allegories, wit, the science of gelato, the art of creating flavours, the layers of existence, the importance of knowledge and, most importantly, the not-oft talked truth that any product is an extension of the man who creates it. By that logic, Cream Choc gelatos are an extension of David Passarella.
“Yes. Every product is what and who the chef is,” Passarella stated, taking me back in time to his mother’s restaurant in Turin. He worked in several restaurants across the world but as he confesses, he “gets bored easily and then has to move on”.
He seeks knowledge, unravels the layers, and then seeks more knowledge, a quest that has helped him create the magic flavours — he now has seven stores (three in Goa, four in Delhi/NCR) laden with gelatos, waffle cones, gelato tubs, frozen yoghurt, smoothies, sundaes with a sprinkling of quiches, baguettes, sandwiches, pizzas in a few stores.
“Gelato is not ice-cream, I have to keep teaching people this,” Passarella, the knowledge-seeker, solemnly shared. “Gelato is a discontinuous process, it involves ‘manualing’, ice-cream is assembly line. The test of a good product is what your tongue and senses discern after 6o seconds,” Passarella said and swore that the tip of the tongue is wired to the brain.
Modak gelatos, anyone?
To make the tongue and brain relish the gelato, Passarella begins with what he calls ‘office work’ (no other chef has ever termed recipe-creating ‘office work’), that is perfecting the ratio of fat, protein, fibre, water, and sugar.
Once the ‘office work’ is done, Passarella begins the taste test. He is the sole taste-tester. If he likes the taste, it is added to the menu. So far, he has created 100 flavours that start at Rs 170 for a small cup of gelato and Rs 1,550 for 1 kilogram gelato tubs (Rs 1,850 for vegan/sugar-free tubs), gelato shakes for Rs 350 (Rs 40 for extra topping).
Hundred flavours and a few quirky festive gelatos — gulab-jamun and ras-malai gelatos during Diwali and modak gelatos during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, are also on the menu.
Worldwide, in the past few years, gelatos are getting saltier, a shift that Passarella is embracing. In the coming months, he will launch a salty Japanese gelato line with 7-8 flavours. Once that is on the menu, he will hunch over in the laboratory and start ‘office work’ on a coastal-flavour gelato line.
I walked through the glass door into the gelateria where pretty colours and flavours sit in rectangle tubs with transparent name tags. Passarella runs a wooden spoon through the passion fruit sorbet and hands it gently. Am not sweet-toothed but the sorbet was delish. In a small blue cup, he scooped pistachio gelato and topped it with a crown of chocolate. Delish, again.
I sat on the pink strawberry smoothie colour chair again and Passarella walked out with white serviettes. A mongrel lay his head on my feet and slept. Passarella loves them and feeds them. His kindness is palpable. He is right. Every product is an extension of the man who creates it. Perhaps Passarella’s kindness is what makes the Cream Choc gelatos so delightful.
At a glance
Cream Choc Outlets in Goa: Anjuna, Porvorim, and Panjim | Address: Near Our Lady Of Health Chapel Complex, Mazal Waddo, Anjuna, Goa 403509 | Contact: +91 9373163251
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