Gelato Village hits Nottingham

The UK’s leading makers of artisan Italian gelato, Gelato Village, will be bringing a pop up cabinet to No 8 Delicatessen in West Bridgford this weekend.

Gelato Village are passionate about producing all natural gelato using the very best seasonal ingredients. For a number of years they have done this with the support of Nottingham’s The Fruit Basket, who supply them with the very best in flavourful, in season British produce as well as delicious fruit from further afield. When combined with other local Midlands ingredients, like fresh unhomogenized milk from Vine Farm Dairy in Great Dalby, Leicestershire, Gelato Village’s gelato has proved irresistible – picking up national and even international awards for its quality year upon year.

Now they are bringing their unique flavours to the Fruit Basket’s sister company, the No 8 Deli. Co-owner of Gelato Village Daniele Taverna said “as Slow Food Supporters, we couldn’t think of anywhere better for us to visit in Nottingham. No 8 have been dedicated to food of the highest quality for over 16 years so we know their customers will value the care we take over our gelato and our showcase of the very best produce The Fruit Basket has to offer.”

Gelato Village’s mobile ‘Gelato on Wheels’ cabinet will be at No 8 Deli from Thursday 25th June to Sunday 28th June. Customers will be able to enjoy up to three delicious flavours in a cup of gelato, regardless of which size they choose. The menu will include British strawberry sorbetto and British raspberry sorbetto – both made with fresh seasonal ingredients and vegan friendly. Customers will also be able to enjoy the traditional Fior di Latte gelato, or ‘Flower of the Milk’ which showcases the flavour of the Vine Farm Dairy milk that is the basis of all Gelato Village’s dairy offerings.

Good neighbours become good friends!

Here at Just we like to think of ourselves as good, if slightly nosey, neighbours! Having been part of the little retail community in St Martin’s Square for five years, we’re always keen to keep up with the comings and goings of the shops moving in and out.

Gelato Village teams up with new Leicester pub to launch unique pop-up

To celebrate the switch-on of Leicester’s Christmas lights, two foodie businesses in the city are coming together to host a unique festive pop-up.

This Thursday, November 23, Gelato Village will be taking their cart of delights to the terrace of Knight and Garter, where they will be serving six delicious flavours of gelato and sorbetto.

Leicester’s Gelato Village win Gelato Festival Challenge

Gelato Village’s Bee Happy gelato has claimed victory at the first heat in the Gelato Festival World Masters competition. Held at the headquarters of Carpigiani UK in Hereford, this was the first step on the road to global recognition.

 

The gelato, made using Leicestershire cow’s milk and local honey along with lemon zest and sage, went head to head with five other competitors from around the UK including Bristol and Cirencester.

A panel of experts judged the gelato for its flavour, structure, creativity and presentation. These criteria are designed to highlight the choice of ingredients and the technical skill demonstrated in the development of the recipe and the making of the fresh gelato on the day of the competition.

“Bee Happy has a special place in our hearts” said Maestro Gelatiere Antonio de Vecchi. “It showcases some of the excellent produce that comes from Leicester, such as The Bee Farmer‘s incredible honey. It’s a joy to have the quality of these ingredients and the passion that we put into our recipe development recognised by the judges.”

The competition is run by Carpigiani, the leading producer of machinery for the production of artisan gelato. Following their victory in the heat, Gelato Village will go on to the UK final in Summer 2020. Should they be successful there, they will compete at the world final in 2021, where the search for the greatest gelato chefs in the world will culminate.

A Statement from Gelato Village

Last night around 7.30pm one of our co-owners, Daniele Taverna, was physically assaulted in an unprovoked attack out the front of our gelateria. He was fortunate to come away from the violent incident only shaken and bruised. This was in no small part due to the timely intervention of our near neighbours from 33 Cank Street and Bodega and we would like to thank those individuals for stepping in to help with no thought for their own personal safety.

Years of underfunding have left Leicester without decent provision for destitute people in our city that can also struggle with drug and alcohol problems. They are not being helped and this is making the city feel increasingly unsafe in the evenings. This has become even more noticeable since lockdown.

Similarly, reductions in funding are limiting the response times of our police. After taking detailed information over the phone, the police first went to the wrong address and when they finally arrived, Daniele’s assailant had managed to flee the scene.

We are disappointed that we are not able to feel safe in our own shop. Gelato only exists to make people happy, and Gelato Village only exists to allow us to bring a little bit of joy into our customers’ lives. But we will not put ourselves and our staff at risk to do that.

Next Steps

Having discussed the incident with our team this morning, we realise that none of us feel safe opening in the evening anymore. There needs to be changes in the city to make the night time economy more welcoming for workers and for customers. There needs to be better infrastructure in place for us to feel safe running our business. Until there is change we will not be able to open Gelato Village past 7pm in the evening.

We know this will be disappointing for customers who enjoy visiting us for gelato late at night, after a comedy show or as a follow up to a dinner date. We know a lot of people like to come to Gelato Village because it opens late but does not serve alcohol. We hope that all of these customers will understand and respect our decision. We will continue to open in the daytime, to offer Click & Collect and delivery services, and we hope that you will all continue to support Gelato Village. We will continue to regularly post updates about our opening hours on here and on our Facebook page.

Thank you,

Antonio & Daniele

Leicester Mercury – Authentic Taste of Italy

It looks like ice cream but tastes better and – best of all – it won’t give you a nasty brain freeze. Gemma Peplow’s latest shopping scoop features the creamy goodies on offer at Gelato Village

Fed up of it being grey and freezing and dreary and generally rubbish outside? Us too. Which is why we’ve spent the last few days searching for the perfect antidote to all this rubbish January weather.

 

Introducing Vine Farm Dairy

After four fantastic years of partnership, it is time for Gelato Village to wave a fond farewell to Alan and Jane at Belvoir Ridge Creamery. We wish them every happiness in their retirement and thank them for the amazing rare breed milk and cream that has been the cornerstone of our fresh gelato since we opened back in 2014.

Vine Farm Dairy logo milk at Gelato Village Leicester

Looking forward we’d like to introduce you all to James and Charlotte from Vine Farm Dairy. Their herd of happy Montbéliarde, Jersey and Holstein cows are now supplying our milk. The herd graze the green grass pastures of the farm in Great Dalby, 13 miles away from Gelato Village.

Their creamy whole milk is pasteurised but unhomogenised. This means that it has been gently heat treated to remove any harmful bacteria, but it has not been through the industrial processes of homogenisation, standardisation and separation so it retains all of its flavour and quality.

The milk is free range. The farm try to maximize the time the cows spend outside grazing in the Great Dalby pastures. In the spring and summer the cows have the freedom to roam around both night and day from field to field. Grazing is good for the cows and good for the milk. During the deep winter months the grass almost stops growing and becomes extremely wet,. Then the cows are housed inside and fed them with the grass that has been conserved as silage and straw in the summer months.

 

Cows at Vine Farm Dairy - their milk supplies Gelato Village in Leicester

Vine Farm Dairy at Gelato Village

Vine Farm Dairy’s milk is now the foundation for all of our dairy-based gelato. Remember, our gelato is made according to our own recipes. We only use fresh, natural ingredients. Everything is made at our in-store Gelato Laboratory. Just look through the windows to see the Lab in action! If you want to taste the difference that the Vine Farm Dairy makes, then pop into Gelato Village and ask for a taste of our Fior di Latte gelato. This is the flower of the milk – which showcases the flavour of this incredible raw ingredient.

Take it a stage further and you can buy Vine Farm Dairy milk from us by the litre. Just grab your bottle from our drinks fridge. Please return the bottles to us for recycling.

 

Fresh milk from Vine Farm Dairy

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