• Otto Enoteca Pizzeria

  1 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011 at 8th St., 212-995-9559

  They call it Otto Enoteca Pizzeria, but that’s selling their talents short. With such exquisite Italian ice cream, why not tack on “Gelateria”? One more multisyllabic word can’t hurt, especially when pastry chef Meredith Kurtzman’s fanciful frozen concoctions are as inspired as her boss Mario Batali’s pizza toppings. Flavors like Meyer-lemon-huckleberry are pure and intense, and the accoutrements dazzle. Superb olive-oil gelato comes with macerated strawberries and a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt; the ricotta is enlivened with wine-poached figs and candied walnuts. Served Italian-style—smoothed, not scooped, into metal cups and outfitted with tiny shovel-like spoons—the gelati evince the perfect texture, cold but creamy, dense but not hard, not gummy in the least. And best of all, they’re available for breakfast on baby brioche rolls, just like in Palermo. .

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine