How to tell real gelato from the tourist stuff

Four rules, and they take three seconds each

Start with the containers. Real gelato is stored in covered metal tins, called pozzetti, or in flat trays under a lid. Gelato piled into peaks in an open display has been stabilised with vegetable fat and emulsifiers so it holds that shape under lights. The peaks are marketing, and you pay for them in texture.

Then the banana. It oxidises and turns grey in a tub exactly as it does on a plate. If it is bright yellow, it is coloured.

Then the pistachio, which is a dull khaki brown-green when it is real. Bright mint green is dye. The same test works on mint: made with leaves, it comes out off-white, not toothpaste blue.

And if anything in the case is blue, keep walking.

There is no blue food. A bright blue tub is pure colouring, and it is never there alone. One blue tub tells you this is a place where nobody is thinking about what goes into the thing, and every other flavour in the counter was made by the same people with the same priorities.

That last one is the fastest test of the four. You can run it from the pavement without stopping.

What else gives it away

A list of forty or fifty flavours means somebody is buying semi-finished bases and adding flavouring. A list of fifteen that changes through the year means somebody is making it from fruit that is in season.

Price is a weak signal in the centre, where rent decides more than skill. Distance from the Duomo is a better one.

Six places in Florence that pass

A counter the size of a cupboard on the quietest small square in the Oltrarno. The flavour list is short and changes with the season, which is always the good sign. Two people at the counter counts as a queue. Take it outside and sit on the square.

Open since 1990 at the foot of Ponte alla Carraia, and the reference point for gelato on this side of the river. Generous portions at prices that have somehow stayed low: the small cone costs roughly what a bottle of water does near the Duomo. There is a second counter on Via dei Benci.

On a street that is now mostly sandwich queues, which makes it easy to walk past. Wide range without tipping into industrial territory, strong on the cream flavours, and it keeps unusually long hours for the centre.

Simone Bonini opened in 2008 and is credited by other gelato makers with pulling the city’s standards up: fresh seasonal fruit, whole milk, good chocolate, no semi-finished bases. The covered pozzetti counter he brought back is now the thing you look for anywhere to tell real from decoration.

Built on short supply chains: named farms for the milk, seasonal fruit, nothing bought in as a ready made base. Around eighteen cream flavours and eight sorbets, changing with what is available. The vegan and gluten free options are properly made rather than an afterthought.

Far enough from the centre that going is a decision rather than an accident, which is exactly why the room is full of Florentines. Buontalenti, an egg and cream flavour invented in Florence, is the house order and the thing most visitors never hear about.

One last thing

The best gelateria near you is almost never the one with the biggest sign, the longest list or the tallest peaks in the window. It is the small counter with lids on the tubs and a grey banana.