Boston - July 19, 2005

Italian Nice

Doriti Gelati

There’s Milly, and then there’s Chloé. There’s Lexus, and then there’s Jaguar. There’s ice cream, and then there’s gelato.

As even a one-time visitor to Rome knows, the latter is the acme of frozen treats, erupting with intense all-natural flavors (not weak extracts) and possessing a denseness than makes ice cream seem like ice milk. And, in a trick of Italian ingenuity worthy of da Vinci, gelato contains less butterfat — making it ounce for ounce less fattening.

The only downside is that buying tickets to Italy to satisfy every craving can get prohibitively expensive. Grazie a dio, then, for Doriti Gelati, churned out by an independent maker and sold in small gourmet shops around the city.

Owner Curtis Grace imports premium ingredients, including hazelnut butter from the Italian Piedmont, pistachios from Sicily, and vanilla beans from Madagascar, and, in his western Massachusetts factory, using recipes perfected by his mama, produces gelato rich enough to fool a Roman.

And healthy enough that it won’t stretch the limits of your Chloé.

Available at Formaggio Kitchen, 244 Huron Avenue, Cambridge (617-354-4750 or doriti.com).