A chef from Rio de Janeiro is making a name for himself as an ice cream maker in the land of “gelato”, Italy, with flavors ranging from traditional pistachio to typical Brazilian fruits, such as coconut, cashew, cajá, soursop, papaya and guava.
Ricardo Ferraz, 46 years old, runs the Amandola ice cream shop in Foligno, a city of around 60 inhabitants located 160 kilometers north of Roma, in the increasingly coveted region of Umbria.
Even outside a large urban center, Amandola (whose name refers to the archaic Italian term for “almond”) has been classified since 2018 with “two cones” (“coni”, in Italian) in Gambero Rosso, a kind of Guide Michelin from Italy.
“And this year we are tipped to get the third 'cono'. We would be the first ice cream shop with three 'coni' in Umbria”, says Ferraz in an interview with HANDLE.
Photo: Ansa / Ansa – Brazil
Born in Rio de Janeiro, he was studying foreign trade and working at a telecommunications company when he decided to move to Salvador to start a gastronomy course at Senac – Ferraz himself today defines himself as a “cook who is an ice cream maker”.
In 2004, he traveled to Italy to take a specialization course at the Italian Culinary Institute for Foreigners (ICIF), in Costigliole d'Asti, a village of less than 6 thousand inhabitants in Piedmont, where he came into contact with several starred chefs who taught classes at the institution.
One of them was Marco Gubiotti, who liked Ferraz's work and gave him a job at his restaurant, La Bastiglia, in Spello, a town neighboring Foligno. The Brazilian stayed there between 2004 and 2009, holding the positions of pastry chef and sous chef.
He then passed through the island of Ischia, a famous summer destination in southern Italy, and Montefalco, in Umbria, until he decided to return to Brazil at the invitation of his father to open a restaurant in Salvador (BA).
This stage in the capital of Bahia lasted three years, but Ferraz decided to try his luck again in Italy, thinking about the quality of life and well-being of his family – his wife is Italian, and his daughter was just five months old when he returned to Brazil. .
The cook, however, found a country that was still struggling to get out of the economic crisis and had an unstable job market.
“In three years – 2014, 2015 and 2016 – I tried a few things, but I didn’t see an air of positive change. Either I moved to the other side of the counter, doing business, or staying as an employee was difficult,” she says.
It was then that Gubiotti appeared in his life again and invited him to participate in a project offering gastronomy courses and private lunches and dinners in a multipurpose space in Foligno. “I had already turned down this project in 2011, but it was a long-term return, and I needed a certain urgency at that moment”, says Ferraz.
From 2016 onwards, the Brazilian worked as a cook on Gubiotti's project, at the same time as he set up an ice cream shop in partnership with the Italian chef, which would open in June 2017, under the name Amandola.
“And we are reaping positive results from very difficult work”, he states. The ice cream shop had been showing growth of 15% to 20% per year before the pandemic, which made Italy face a strict national lockdown between March and May 2020. From November onwards, the country began to live with regionalized quarantines that delayed the resumption of trade.
While many businesses suffered and even closed their doors due to the restrictions imposed by Covid, Amandola managed to stay afloat by focusing on takeout and delivery sales and today, with the reopening of almost all activities, it has already resumed its old growth rates. .
Currently, Ferraz is Gubiotti's partner and dedicates all his time to the ice cream shop, but from time to time he still cooks moqueca and feijoada at private dinners in Foligno.
Tropical flavor
Brazilian flavors, in fact, are also present in Amandola's windows. Although the preferred tastes are still traditional, such as pistachios, chocolate, hazelnuts and seasonal fruits, Ferraz has already invested in seasonal flavors directly linked to his country of origin.
“I've already made it with mango, coconut, cashew, cajá, acerola, soursop, papaya, guava. We bought the fruit from an importer, but once some friends brought me jackfruit, and I made it. There’s always a little fuss, people are very curious,” she says.
Other unusual flavors are olive oil – Umbria is also known for growing olive trees – and tomato, not necessarily to fill a cone or a cup, but to encourage people to see ice cream in a different way, perhaps as an accompaniment to a salad. , for example.
Competition is great, but Ferraz believes that it is still more “quantitative than qualitative”, even in Italy, whose creamy gelato is copied by ice cream shops around the world.
The Brazilian says that ice cream is still seen as a seasonal product by most Italians, and from September and October, when temperatures start to drop, establishments start to replace it with chocolates and other sweets in their windows.
“Ice cream is usually something else within a more diversified commercial location, which is the bar, so there weren’t many specialized businesses,” says Ferraz. (Handle)
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