GelatoSpots

Research edition

A man in chef's whites and a dark apron shaping pale gelato onto a cone with a spatula, outdoors among treesFrom Ciacco

Milan · gelato

Ciacco

Ciacco is the strongest single method story in the Milan set: a food-science thesis on emulsifier substitution, converted into a shop that states plainly what it leaves out, and now into a public research laboratory in a former print works that centralises everything the Ciacco name makes. It is also the only Milan Tre Coni shop with an independent critic naming it the best gelato in the country by name, in print.

What to order
Ricordo di un tortello - a cream of milk, fresh egg, butter browned with Parmigiano and fried sage

What we know

  • Guizzetti's university thesis at Parma, on substituting traditional emulsifiers with alternative protein fractions or vegetable fibres, led him to open one of Italy's first additive-free gelaterias in Parma in 2013, with a Milan shop following a year later (Food & Wine Italia; MilanoToday)
  • One of six gelaterie in the comune of Milano awarded Gambero Rosso's Tre Coni in the 2024 Gelaterie d'Italia guide (Gambero Rosso International)
  • In spring 2024 centralised all production into a new 270-square-metre 'Laboratorio Urbano' at Via Botticelli 30, inside a former early-1900s print works, open to the public but without its own point of sale (MilanoToday)
  • Runs an 'olfactory memory' research line: gelato built from extracted fig leaf, lentisco, thyme and myrtle to evoke Mediterranean scrubland, and a croissant-scrap flavour made by hydrolysing and fermenting stale cornetti into a croissant-flavoured molasses (Food & Wine Italia)
  • 2025 menu of 17 flavours grouped by plant family - a Lauraceae cream (bay leaf, cinnamon, avocado) and a Rosaceae sorbet (strawberry, raspberry, rose, geranium) among them
Status
open
Address
Via Spadari, 13, 20123 Milano
Maker
Stefano Guizzetti, founder and gelatiere; born 1982 in Bergamo
Opened
2014
Website
www.ciaccolab.it/
Last checked
2026-08-21

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