#85 – CHUNKY SORELLA at STELLINA

For the third year in a row, I’m going to attempt to eat every single item on Time Out New York’s annual 100 Best Dishes list. In no particular order, here’s my take on their Top 100. Let the gluttony continue…

Salted caramel is a very difficult flavor to get right. To this day, the best version I’ve ever tasted is Jeni’s in Columbus, Ohio. It has the perfect balance of sweet and salty without either component dominating. Since then, I’ve had other versions to varying degrees of success. But when it’s good, it’s really good.

Stellina is the gelato outpost of Sorella, its next door big brother Italian restaurant. After months of being closed for renovations, they now have a walk-up counter offering up to 14 flavors of rich, creamy gelato.

The flavors on offer are not your usual choices. Apricot sorbet, brown sugar strawberry, and coconut straciatella all sounded very promising. But I was here for Time Out’s list item and the company’s namesake flavor, the chunky Sorella.

It’s also not your usual salted caramel and in some ways, that’s why I think it didn’t work. They weighed it down with the addition of some unnecessary mix-ins: chocolate covered pretzels and ultra-rich fudge. There was so much salt content here that the best way to enjoy this gelato would be with a large glass of water. Honestly, I felt like I was eating salt ice cream.

I appreciated the crunchy pretzels, which offered a touch of relief (they packed a less strong salt punch), but there were not nearly enough of them. Another problem was that the ice cream was practically soup the minute it was served. I know gelato is supposed to be served at higher temperatures than ice cream, but this dribbled down the sides too quickly.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get past the imbalance of flavors here. I think ice cream should be refreshing and not make you more parched than when you started. Take a trip to Columbus, Ohio and you’ll understand how wonderful this flavor can be.

Would Stellina’s Chunky Sorella make my Top 100 of the year? It’s loaded with too many rich, salty components without any relief. And sadly, the gelato was more of a soup than an ice cream. 5 out of 10.