Hungarians just love ice cream. But maybe not at Ft 220 (€0.90) a portion, which is a single scoop, or rather Italian-style scrape, costs at Artigiana Gelati (follow link for contact details and user feedback) on Buda’s Csaba utca. As a point of reference, a gombóc of ice cream normally retails at between Ft 100 and Ft 150 in Budapest. But despite this, a line of people complaining about the price often forms out onto the street, particularly during one of Hungary’s dreaded kánikulák (“heatwaves”). And it’s no wonder – the ice cream is nothing short of out of this world.
Amazingly, each of the 30 or so flavors available are made on the spot each day by Júlia Dáni (the craftswoman from whom the parlor takes its name), or rather her son Tamás. Júlia, who serves up the ice cream with her two daughters throughout the summer, picked up the recipe from a Bergamo-based friend of her Italian husband, a travelling engineer currently working in Uganda. She has passed on the craft to her son, who gets in at the crack of dawn to pasteurize the milk, add the fruit, chocolate and other fine things that make Buda residents drool.
The selection is spectacular and quite daunting. All the usual suspects are there, chocolate, vanilla, fruits of the forest and Hungarian staples like melon and peach. Exotic fruits, such as pomegranate, fig and mango, are well represented, as are an array of creamy desserts like tiramisu and stracciatella. Special mentions also must go out to the After Eight – the closest Americans can expect to get to the holy grail of mint choc chip – an incredibly refreshing mint and lime combo, and last, but not least, the award-winning house special, the Amedan. This is a combination of walnut and gorgonzola cheese that is surprisingly smooth on the taste buds – and that absolutely must be partnered with the exquisite pear sorbet.
And as for the price, you can be sure the complaints will stop at the first lick.
Must try it. So far the best ice cream I’ve had in Hungary is at the Korona cukrasda in Soltvadkert, a small town in the Alföld.
Finom-inal ice-cream. And the After Eight is almost mint choc chip (without the chip of course).
Which brings me onto an encounter a Hungarian lady-friend of my acquaintance had in Dublin a few years ago with another Hungarian working as an ice-cream vendor. She asked for a mint choc chip (a flavour she loves) and was told that ‘this ice-cream flavour is not for Hungarians’. Add to this the lack of MCC flavour ice-cream here in Hungary and we almost have a conspiracy to deny Hungarians a taste of the most heavenly ice-cream flavour in existence.
So why is mint choc chip the forbidden flavour here? Any suggestions? And does anyone know anywhere I can get some here?