Organic ice-cream parlour in Sweden

Before you have even ordered an ice cream, you are already thinking of more - it is all so mouth-watering. The containers on the display counter are piled high with wavy ice-cream in a whole range of colours. With a large scoop, Francesco or one of his employees fills the cones with two, three or four different flavours.

Picture on the right: Plenty of customers at the ice-cream counter

The name of the ice-cream parlour opened by Francesco Luca (picture on left) two years ago is Dolce Sicilia. At 31 years old, Franceso has become an entrepreneur producing organic ice-cream. He had a great-grandfather in Sicily who was a well known ice-cream maker and now he has gone into the business himself. He opened his first ice-cream parlour in the port Malmö on the Baltic coast in the south of Sweden and in April 2008 he opened a second one about 100 m from the beach in Malmö. His success shows he made the right move: he is overrun by customers in his contemporary-design ice-cream parlour – especially when the weather is sunny. It’s mainly young people who come from the bathing platform down on the Öresund strait to buy an ice-cream.

The new organic ice-cream parlour is a stone’s throw away from Malmö’s modern landmark – a twisting high-rise tower (“Turning Torso”) in the most prestigious part of town. A coastal strip roughly a kilometre long on the edge of Malmö (270,000 inhabitants) called Västra Hamnen is currently being developed as a residential and business area where people can live and stroll around.

(Picture: “Glass” in Swedish means ice-cream)

“The milk and cream come from an organic dairy in Sweden, and we buy the sugar locally, too,” says Francesco Luca. Most of the other ingredients such as hazel nuts, coffee and cocoa come from Sicily or Italy. “Our ice-cream is made with organic ingredients only, and we buy organic products for our own private use as well.” The coffee that is served in the ice cream parlour as espresso, caffè latte and latte macchiato is organic fair trade coffee. He also serves sandwiches made with unleavened bread and ciabatta. Although not all these are organic, as many as possible are. Under the ice cream parlour’s name you read “Ice cream and more”, pointing to the fact that it sells more than ice-cream, semi-frozen products, coffee, tea and (organic) chocolate.

Guiseppe, the 19 year old brother of the proprietor, explains: of the 30 different flavours, pistachio, chocolate and lemon are the most popular. And in any range of ice- cream in Sweden there has to be liquorice flavour. More than anything else, the Scandinavians love liquorice - also known as sweet wood. Prices are comparable with other ice cream parlours: one scoop costs 18 Swedish Crowns (1.90 €), two scoops cost 25 (2.67 €), three scoops 35 (3.75 €) and four different flavours 45 (4.80 €). Of course, if customers have a special request, Francesco’s team will put together splendid creations with wafers, candied fruit and fresh fruit – a thoroughly healthy organic experience.

(Picture: Organic ice-cream parlour Dolce Sicilia near the beach along the Baltic)

The Luca brothers are confident they are the only producer of organic ice-cream in southern Sweden, and they are looking forward to their business flourishing in the coming years. “We are pioneers in unadulterated ice-cream,” says Francesco and, as such, he is following the current trend.

(Picture: Young Swedes enjoying the sunny weather and organic ice-cream in the centre of Malmö)

Address: Drottningtorget 6 and Västra Varvsg 37, 21125 Malmö

www.dolcesicilia.se

You now come across a few organic ice-cream parlours in Germany too. In the middle of Frankfurt am Main, there is for example the ice-cream café “Das Eis” that has organic certification. You’ll find it next to the market hall (Kleinmarkthalle) between the Zeil, the main shopping street, and the Römer (the Town Hall). The ice-cream is manufactured fresh every day in the local organic ice-cream production plant, and as well as in Frankfurt you can buy it in Mainz, Wiesbaden, Darmstadt, Cologne and, since June 2008, also in Hamburg.

Since the spring of 2008, Hamburg has also had its own ice-cream parlour with organic certification in Waitzstraße (in the Othmarschen District), where people love to stroll. The owner Hilmar Jaedicke (42) uses only organic ingredients, local if possible, in his ice-cream. Customers can see through a glass partition into the kitchen and watch the roughly 50 different ice-cream creations being produced.

In May opened another organic ice-cream parlour in Leipzig. The range covers nine varieties of ice-cream, including delicacies like mango-ginger, strawberry-lavender or chocholat-rosemary. The owners Toni Paschke and Jürgen Kleinik have their own small ice-cream manufacture in the kitchen. One scoop is at € 1,20.