Last week, we visited Toscanini’s Ice Cream, a contender for Boston’s best ice cream—as seconded by Boston correspondent Amy Traverso in her guide to Beantown’s best eats. But Tosci’s has competition. It’s an oft-cited fact on both sides of the Charles that Bostonians eat more ice cream than anyone else in the country. One hardly needs statistics, though, to realize that Boston is an ice cream town. Just walking down Newbury Street or around Harvard Square is enough to see a veritable parade of happy cone lickers. And it’s easy to see why. The quality and variety of scoop shops can’t be beat. Steve Herrell has been smashing candy into super-rich ice cream since three decades before Coldstone came...
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“The Best Ice Cream In the World,” blazes the print across Toscanini’s window, from a past New York Times review. We all make grandiose claims, but this one is pretty strong. All right. Skepticism shelved. Gus Rancatore opened Toscanini’s down the street from Harvard and MIT in 1981, and there have been lines out the door ever since. So beloved is Tosci’s that when the shop was seized earlier this year by the Massachusetts Revenue Department, due to hundreds of thousands in uncollected taxes, its devout patrons raised over $30,000 to pay off Rancatore’s own debt. Now that’s loyalty. Tosci’s has fans in all corners, from many credible publications. Even their vanilla has won acclaim, voted "Best in America"...
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Bostonians rightfully prides itself on their local ice cream purveyors, and for once their pride is not misplaced. Toscanini's is probably my favorite, especially his burnt caramel, which is refreshingly non-sweet. Other folks whose taste buds I respect rave about Christine's in Inman Square, especially for the seasonal flavors like blood peach. Herrell's ice cream may be a shade less delicious, but its hot fudge rocks. The once proud Steve's, which invented the mix-in concept, is a pale imitation of the original. So cast your vote: 1) Toscanini's 2) Christine's 3) Herrell's...
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Although I am neither a Whole Foods advocate or a Whole Foods basher (After all, Whole Foods is a very complicated enterprise) there are certain things I love about Whole Foods. One is their selection of ice creams. They carry Capogiro Gelato and Sorbetto from Philadelphia, which is obscenely expensive ($10 a pint) but often very, very good, in addition to the standard premium brands like Haagen Dazs and Ben and Jerry's. Last Saturday I was perusing the ice cream case at my local Whole Foods when I spotted a label that read Tosca. When I picked up a pint I discovered that it was actually Toscanini's , from Cambridge, Mass. Gus Toscanini is one of this country's seminal artisanal...
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