How we choose

The working model

1. Discover widely — through ratings, guides, awards, press, local lists and community signals.
2. Verify useful facts — using official and authoritative sources.
3. Make an editorial selection — using observable signals and informed judgment.
4. Add recommendations and deeper validation — where they strengthen context and authority.

Public ratings help surface candidates. They do not determine selection.

What we look at

• Ingredient provenance
• Production method and on-site production
• Seasonality
• Specialist commitment
• Longevity and local significance
• Transparency
• Distinctive identity

No single signal qualifies a spot. The strength, combination and verifiability of the evidence decide, followed by editorial judgment.

Source authority

Source authority affects research priority and editorial confidence. It does not automatically decide inclusion. Official sources are strongest for factual claims such as ingredients, methods, history, opening status and location, and multiple independent authoritative sources create greater confidence.

A discovery source is recorded, and is never treated as evidence, because it is not.

We research each city in its own language

An English-language search returns the guide written for visitors. A search in the city’s own language returns the guide written for the people who live there, and those are different lists. The difference between them is most of what this guide is for, so the local-language search is the one that runs first — and it asks for the thing by its own name: sorbetes, nieve de garrafa, bastani, booza, softice, kulfi, granita, not the English translation of any of them.

The publications behind the published records reach 30 countries on their own country-coded domains. That is a rough measure and we would rather publish a rough one than none: it counts where a publication lives rather than what language it prints, so it undercounts the local press that publishes on a .com. It is generated from the records on every build, which means that if this guide ever drifts back to reading the world in English, the number falls and this paragraph stops being able to say it.

We read through translation where we have to. We do not cite a translation: a source is recorded under the title it was published with, and a quotation stays in the language it was given in.

What a published spot must have

• Correct name and location
• Current operating status
• Its primary ice-cream discipline or tradition
• Several supported factual signals
• A concise explanation of why it belongs
• Source references
• A last-checked date

Unknown fields can remain blank. The minimum cannot. A record below it does not publish, and the build refuses to ship if one slips through.