Carrer de Sèneca is up there for favourite streets. Leave the wide pavements of Passeig de Gracia, curl your way around the Salvador Espriu gardens (more of a plaça really), leave the Casa Fuster behind you and there is Sèneca. A little street, mostly pedestrian, populated with shops you will want to visit. (Also the street on which you will find Fan Shoronpo Japones and a new addition Fan Hacci Curry)
This is the street that Matteo, Gianluca, Marco y Francesco chose for their artisanal gelato shop Paral.lelo Gelato.
A new independent ice cream (or gelato) shop could open in Barcelona every month and still we would not be anywhere close to having enough. The idea behind Paral.lelo is to make their ice cream daily, onsite, visible to anyone who wishes to look.
So far, so “we’ve heard this story before” but the thing about Paral.lelo is the flavours. Whenever I start to go through the list, I think of some other Italians – the Futurists, more specifically Umberto Boccioni and his statue Unique Forms of Continuity in Space. Only because they were Italians whose art always made me cock my head, pause and consider. Here too – instead of going in and quickly deciding on a flavour, you have to pause and try to familiarise yourself with the unfamiliar concoctions on offer.
Is it to be dates and bananas? Or black sesame. Or…cheddar? Too weird. It has to be a shaggy coconut and chocolate scoop that looks like a dirty stracciatella. Or – this place being Italian owned, any nut. Perhaps a popsicle.
I am usually surprised. I’ve yet to be dissapointed. And then I have Sèneca to stroll up and down on. Peer in at the interior design shops or see what Plom the children’s art gallery with the funny door is up to.
Paral.lelo Gelato
C/ de Sèneca 18
08006 Gràcia
parallelogelato.com
More ice cream on Best Eats Page
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