Amsterdam · ice cream
IJssalon Tofani
Tofani is the deepest, best-documented example of the Italian-emigrant ijssalon tradition found in Amsterdam: a continuous, still-Italian-run business on the same corner since 1942, with a genuinely dramatic wartime interruption and an unbroken chain of Benabbio-connected owners since 1920.
What we know
- Founded by brothers Michele and Antonio Tofani, emigrants from Benabbio, Tuscany who arrived in the Netherlands in 1920; opened the Kloveniersburgwal salon in 1942 after a first salon at Oude Waal in 1939 (Babel Magazine)
- Family fled back to Italy in 1943 during WWII after the Dutch accountant entrusted with the shop, an NSB (Dutch Nazi party) member, sold off the entire inventory; they rebuilt from nothing after the war (Babel Magazine)
- Unbroken Italian-run lineage since 1920 even after the Tofani name left the business: sons Lio and cousin Silvano (1968), then Lio's son Paolo and cousin Marco (1990), then brothers Riccardo and Daniele Politi/Polito, also from Benabbio (2002 or 2003) (Babel Magazine; Oude Binnenstad)
- Ice cream made fresh daily by hand on-site with natural ingredients compared and chosen supplier-by-supplier for quality (Oude Binnenstad, 2021)
- Seasonal by design: open mid-March to end of October, weather-dependent; the owners spend winters back in Benabbio (Oude Binnenstad, 2021)
- Direct historical evidence of Dutch resistance to Italian ice cream sellers: in 1935 the Nederlandse Bond van Consumptie-ijsbereiders protested at Theater Bellevue and lobbied for a foreign-labour law that made work permits harder for Italian ice cream workers (Babel Magazine)
- Status
- open
- Address
- Kloveniersburgwal 16, Amsterdam
- Maker
- Riccardo and Daniele Politi (spelled 'Polito' in one source), brothers from Benabbio, Tuscany, owners since 2002/2003
- Opened
- 1942
- Last checked
- 2026-08-21
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