Whipped Dreams

Summers in Florence go best with creamy, lip smacking gelatos made using generations-old secret recipes

- Radhika Raj

On a sunny April morning, my partner and I stand outside Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence’s most iconic cathedral, gaping at its green-pinkred marble facade, and the red terracotta-tiled dome stencilled against a crisp blue sky. Our guide, Luca, part-time art student, part-time tour guide, and fulltime story-spinner, tells us that the dome of this 15th-century structure, famously called the Duomo, was built by a goldsmith after the roof fell to expose a gaping hole. The technique architect Filippo Brunelleschi used to build a dome so large, so delicate, without any scaffolding, remains a mystery—it all makes me go weak in the knees. Eyes trained on the red cupola, I walk around it to the rhythm of a busker’s violin, dodging giant, human-size soap bubbles blown by a street magician. My sickly-sweet lemon gelato melts, leaving trails on my fingers, seeping into my sleeve.

“Is that a gelato!?” squeals Luca, her eyes wide with animated horror. “You have been tricked! There is no such thing as a neon yellow lemon gelato.”

Florence, the birthplace of Renaissance, is packed with the most illustrious art, architecture, literature and innovation. It is also the birthplace and reigning capital of gelato—the richer, creamier, silkier Italian counterpart of ice cream. Italians will tell you it is best devoured as a dessert da passeggio—dessert eaten on a stroll. It is easy, too, given how traffic is restricted in Florence’s historical heart.