After the Roca brothers and Alain Ducasse, Albert Adrià is also setting his sights on ice cream: the idea is to launch a series of thematic shops, which will expand over time to include cookies and coffee.
The news
It has been four years that Albert Adrià and his partner Alfredo Machado have been working on a project dedicated to the quintessential cold dessert, which has now resulted in the opening of Gelato Collection, a small ice cream store with workshop on La Rambla, near the Torrons Vicens store. There are about 20 flavors, available both as a terrine and as a cone, among which the Spanish chef favors coffee, with a slightly caramelized mouth finish.
But fruit flavors also stand out, prepared with raw material from the nearby Boqueria and unloaded of added sugar, with an extraordinarily creamy texture. There are basically four types to choose from: classic, seasonal, signature and with alcohol. The recipes, partially on display, now number about 60. The idea is to catalog them, modeled after the perfume industry.
The two had been planning to start the mantecatore for some time, but Enigma was absorbing all their energy. Turning things around was a conversation with Angel Velasco, owner of Torrons Vicens, with whom Adrià has been working for 12 years. As chance would have it, he already had the permits and the right space, right next door to his workshop. To interpret it in a style akin to Enigma, therefore, El Equipo Creativo, which had already signed Pakta and Tickets, was responsible. "In general, ice cream parlors are always a bit dated on an aesthetic level, so I wanted to update them. That's why we were inspired by perfumeries and jewelry stores," the grand chef explains.
Prices? Between 3.80 and 5.80 euros, for an assortment of products of different formats available in cones or cups, as usual. “It is still the most popular project I have ever done,” Adrià points out. The flavors, on the other hand, stand out for research and creative elaboration (see the whole lemon ice cream, with a fair percentage of peel reused to minimize waste, or the raspberry, lychee and rose combo, already broken in by Tickets in amuse bouche form).
"Barcelona is a city that boasts great cocktail bars, pizzerias, burger shops and now ice cream parlors. We wanted to add our grain of sand with this opening,“ Adrià told La Vanguardia, emphasizing how competition can only benefit the city. And the name “collection” is not accidental, as the plans include the opening of other shops dedicated to cookies or coffee, called precisely “Cookie Collection” and “Coffee Collection,” modeled after Ducasse's manufactures. “Because the future of gastronomy lies in specialization.”
