A small taste of Italy is tucked away in a shop on the hill of Coventry Road. And even though La Gelateria lies just inside the borders of Cleveland Heights, you can close your eyes, roll the icy gelato on your tongue, and imagine you are in the heart of a bustling Rome. With just shy of two dozen flavors to choose from, La Gelateria is the answer to the perennial “Honey Hut or Michell’s?” debate.
The atmosphere is plain; not in that modern, “less is more” sense, just plain. Not much decoration adorns the walls, and nothing about the La Gelateria screams trendy to you. That’s because nobody comes here for the atmosphere. It doesn’t matter what the walls, tables or chairs look like, what kind of music is playing, or even who else you might find here, because thats not why anyone comes. They come because the gelato simply sings. The fruit gelatos are crisp, slightly tart, and ravishingly refreshing. Although you can’t go wrong with any, the pink grapefruit and raspberry stand apart. The decadent dairy based gelatos, from Choco-Coco, to Donatella, to Almond, are rich and creamy, yet feel very light on your tongue at the same time.
Gelato leaves no thick, sticky-sweet feeling in your mouth the way traditional high-butterfat content ice cream does, but rather has a very clean finish. That’s because gelato contains a fourth of the butterfat found in normal ice cream. Deceivingly, it also contains a third less air (so proclaims a sign in the corner). That’s true for both the fruit based gelatos (ven lighter than a sorbet), and the dairy based ones. As such, you can combine to your hearts content, (La Gelateria let’s you make half and half orders) experimenting with the thousands of possible combinations. My favorites so far: chocolate hazelnut and pink grapefruit, donatella and raspberry, almond and lemoncello.
Best of all, you can spend an evening in gelato heaven without spending all the cash in your wallet. A small is $3.50 and a large is $4.50. Even better, there’s no extra charge for splitting an order between two different flavors.
