SSPNY Gets the Best New Gelato Spot in Town, A.B. Biagi, Right Here on Elizabeth Street!
If you could pick the ideal sorts of places to open in your neighborhood, what would they be? Good restaurants suitable for lots of different occasions, certainly, as well as a few solid local bars. A big grocery store like Whole Foods within a couple of blocks is always a plus, and it's important to have a couple of cafes where you can sit and work or chat or just chill for as long as you like while sipping coffee. Throw in a bunch of culture, some interesting boutiques, lots of good-looking neighbors, and ready access to public transportation, and you've got... well, you've got Nolita. In fact, the only thing missing from this part of town was a truly world-class ice cream parlor. Which, as of this summer and the opening of A.B. Biagi, is missing no more.
A.B. Biagi is the creation of Antonio Barros Biagi, who grew up with his big Italian family in the countryside of Brazil, where ex-pats had to modify their traditional gelato recipes somewhat, to take the tropical environment (the fruit, the moisture, the heat) into account. The result is a lighter, even slightly fluffy frozen concoction that they would have made back home. Whatever: the stuff that Biagi's scooping at his pretty little namesake parlor is awesome. Worth a visit no matter where you live in the city; worth a visit a few times a week if you live right across the street in Nolita.
I've been to A.B. Biagi a couple of times and, because I'm partial to double scoops and Biagi's generous with his samples, have managed to try at least a dozen different flavors. All of them, every single one, have been excellent: intense, refreshing, and what I call honest, in that they taste like the thing they're supposed taste like--chocolate, hazelnut, strawberry, pistachio, acai, peanut butter, whatever--not just "cold and sweet". The small kitchen limits Biagi to about eight gelatos and two sorbets at a time, so while there's a core group of flavors here every day, there are also a few rotating specials to keep things fresh. And so it was that Nolita became the perfect NYC neighborhood.
A.B. Biagi is located on Elizabeth Street between Houston and Prince and is open from Tuesday through Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. Biagi also has a noteworthy coffee program at his tiny parlor/cafe.
For more information, click here.
