Patrizia Pasqualetti, one of the most recognized Italian ice cream makers in the United States, intervened at the microphones of the New York in the podcast Portraits of Claudio Brachino, telling a journey that from Orvieto brought it with his family first in Milan, then in California and finally in New York, where today he leads “La Gelateria di Eataly by Patrizia Pasqualetti” in the Flatiron district. In his words, ice cream is not only a product, but a universal language able to tell Italian culture through simple ingredients, artisanal technique and a precise idea of daily happiness. “Ours is a place where Italian ice cream tradition and innovation coexist,” explains Pasqualetti, who defines his ice cream shop “a point of happiness, a very interesting project, because it is not limited to selling a product: wants to tell a culture, a way of life, a way of being well, all from a cone or a cup of ice cream”.
The family history that gave rise to everything begins in Orvieto, while passing through the industrial Milan of the golden years. Here his father, after a career in the world of engines — “he had a particularly attentive ear, he also worked for Ferrari” — decides to change his way. “He felt that his life had to change, he wanted to do something that would cheer people’s daily.” So he opens an ice cream shop, bringing in the new craft the same rigor and precision that he applied to the cars. “From there our history was born in the world of artisan ice cream”.
The jump from the Apennines to the Pacific arrives when Patrizia Pasqualetti flies to California for advice. It is the beginning of a new chapter. « California immediately fascinated me: climate, lifestyle, local products… I realized that there I could continue our tradition.” In Silicon Valley, it opens an ice cream shop that combines products with zero kilometre and Italian know-how. “The ice cream is a universal language,” he says, and shows it every day by meeting customers from all over the world, attracted by the purity of tastes and the identity of Made in Italy.
California becomes a natural laboratory where local ingredients and Italian craftsmanship meet and enhance each other. «Our Italian products remain protagonists: pistachios, hazelnuts, excellences that are unparalleled. But to promote homemade ice cream I must also protect fresh ingredients: milk, fruit, everything that is part of the heritage of the country that hosts me.
This union has created a moment of mutual gratitude: they offer us their fresh raw materials, we bring the Italian tradition and technique. From here is born also the pleasure of coming to visit us and to discover really what it means an ice cream made well”.
From the Pacific to the Atlantic the step seems short, but New York represents a completely different horizon, full of symbols: «New York represents, under so many points of view, the city of American Dream».
The occasion comes with Eataly, who proposes to open a ice cream shop in the heart of Manhattan. “We are in Flatiron, on 23rd Street, we want to create not only a greedy, but cultural moment of knowledge of ingredients,” he explains. Its “sundae” are direct heirs of the orvietane ice cream cups, while the Ice cream classes Patrizia organizes with his staff teach how “simple ingredients – milk, sugar, fresh fruit – can become an extraordinary product through a process linked to tradition and supported by technological innovation, which makes it extremely pleasant to the palate”.
The result is a welcoming space, a “point of happiness that attracts, daily, a very varied target”.
Happiness, for Patrizia Pasqualetti, passes from ice cream as a daily gesture: “My father said that ice cream is “consolatory”. It is a small gift that lasts little, but it is intense. And fortunately it replies: we have customers who come to “consulate” every day with our ice cream. This confirms that this simple gesture really has an emotional value, almost therapeutic”.
And the daily experience confirms this: children who stop crying in front of a cone, couples who cut out a romantic moment, people who come back every day for a fragment of serenity.
Behind the counter today work 37 people divided between East and West Coast: “They are relatively few for the United States, but many for Italy. For me I am a great responsibility and at the same time a great pride, because I am an integral part of our story of Italianity in the world”.
The success of “La Gelateria di Eataly by Patrizia Pasqualetti” and other family ice cream parlors also passes by Italian hospitality and attention to service: «This happiness we try to convey it not only with the product, but with what is the tradition of Italian hospitality. My father always said that we must do customer service and give a good service both that we sell an ice cream, and that we sell a brilliant.
Our boys have been with us since we opened, they are proud to represent a piece of Italy and this product. This transpares and the customer perceives it, even when it comes to a product that might seem trivial. But ice cream is not trivial at all: it is all but banal”.
The topic of ingredients brings Patrizia Pasqualetti to talk about sustainability and a careful balance between Italian excellence and local products.
“To remain faithful to the family tradition, we seriously work products at zero kilometer. From California to the East Coast I immediately did an exploration of farms, farms, which could provide us with high taste and high quality raw materials, even from an organic point of view.
We managed: here we have excellent fruit, we have a particularly good milk. About 65-70% of our ice cream is made with American raw materials. This allows us to work peacefully even with duties,” he explains. The pistachio, hazelnut, some excellent chocolates still come from Italy, but milk and fruit come from selected farms in the United States. «It is a sustainable bridge: they offer us fresh raw materials, we bring tradition and technique”. A model that values the territory in which they operate without betraying the Italian root of the product.
In the world of gastronomy, admits Pasqualetti, the ice creamers have long been considered “sons of a lesser God” than chefs and pastries. But something is changing today. “The ice cream is no longer just a food comfort: it is a healthy food comfort,” he says.
“The attention of the institutions has also begun. Important work tables were born to which I participated mainly in Los Angeles, where we have another ice cream shop followed by my son Corrado, which represents the third generation of our activity”.
It is an evolution that excites it and confirms a truth that history had already written: « Auguste Escoffier said that the chef is fantasy, the pastry chef is precision, but the ice creamer is perfection». A definition that you feel deeply yours.
Looking forward, the future for Patrizia Pasqualetti has the taste of teaching and dissemination. “My dream is to educate the palate,” he says. Its sensory classes – where taste, smell, sight and sometimes even music work together – represent the next chapter of its path: “We acknowledge how from a single ingredient you get to an ice cream, offering pleasure to all senses”.
It is a project that combines past and future, roots and innovation, Italy and America. A path that, in his words, wants to continue to “educate to the pleasure of life”.
L’articolo Patrizia Pasqualetti and its ice cream as “point of happiness” proviene da IlNewyorkese.
