Ballabeni Icecream - Scooping up Summer Bliss
At the corner of Theresienstraße and Türkenstraße, from March to October, you’ll find Munich’s best ice cream.
During this time, the restaurant owners in Maxvorstadt wistfully tuck away their dessert menus.
Because everyone knows – by 10 p.m. at the latest, after the main course, the guests head off in the same direction anyway.
The goal is to get a portion of the creamiest Ballabeni ice cream for dessert, before they close at 10:30.
Giorgio Ballabeni keeps it simple with exactly twelve flavors on offer at any given time.
This, he explains, guarantees the highest quality - something difficult to maintain with a larger selection.
For us, twelve is more than enough, since deciding between them is hard enough as it is.
Thankfully, there’s always a little sample spoon to taste the one flavor we didn’t manage to fit into a full scoop.
There’s a song called “Come to Hawaii” by Joe Mc Dermott, that describes a day spent transforming a backyard into a Hawaiian beach getaway with nothing but imagination.
Thanks to Giorgio and Lorella Ballabeni, we can create our own dream of an Italian Riviera beach day, right in the heart of Munich’s Maxvorstadt.
Armed with a colorful beach towel, we join the queue that never seems to shrink in front of Ballabeni Icecream on a summer day.
The excited chatter around us whisks us away to the narrow lanes of Portofino.
Today’s indulgence: three scoops - pistachio, lemon and raspberry, forming the most delicious Italian tricolore.
We wander past the vibrant ceramic facade of the Brandhorst Collection with our icy treasure in hand, imagining it as the colorful fisherman’s houses on the Ligurian coast.
On the lawn in front of the Neue Pinakothek, we spread out our beach towel, pretending the museum is a castle by the Mediterranean Sea.
The expansive green becomes our personal beach, with students playing badminton, ice cream-smeared children and sunbathers completing the scene.
In our minds, Paolo Conte’s raspy voice serenades us with “Gelato al limon.”
Thanks to the Ballabenis and their ice cream, perhaps the best outside of Italy, we can indulge in this delicious daydream.
And for those who can’t wait for summer, Ballabeni’s ice cream workshop on Seidlstraße offers classes from November to February, where you can learn how to craft this dreamy gelato yourself.
