Tartufo di Pizzo 

Tartufo di Pizzo is a typical dessert of Calabria. It is an ice-cream scoop filled with chocolate or fruit syrup or frozen fruit, covered with chocolate, cinnamon or nuts. Unlike other Italian tartufi, you don’t need a pig to find this one! Named after its resemblance to the highly coveted truffle, the tartufo di Pizzo is a cocoa-dusted chocolate-and-hazelnut ice cream bomb, invented in the quaint Calabrian seaside town of Pizzo in 1952.

When you’re faced with this sort of relentless heat  in the quaint Calabrian seaside, there’s only one good way to keep yourself cool ice cream. Fortunately, the Calabrians realised this some time ago; gelato is a huge deal in the south and gelaterias serve an incredible range of flavours not just classics like hazelnut, pistachio and stracciatella (a milk ice cream with veins of chocolate running through it) but also very unusual, local flavours, like liquorice, red onion and, yes, even ‘nduja. If you’re not quite sure of the logic behind a spicy pork salami ice cream, you’re not alone. Take my advice and seek out the legendary Calabrian tartufo di Pizzo instead a multi-layered hazelnut-and-chocolate ice cream bomb that lays a fair claim to being one of the world’s greatest desserts.

The story of the tartufo starts in the Calabrian city of Pizzo a small fishing town on the region’s west coast. Pizzo is the undisputed home of Italian gelato it’s known nationwide as the ‘city of ice cream’ and there are at least twenty gelaterias in the centre of the town alone (one per every 500 inhabitants, incidentally). Pizzo’s place at the centre of the gelato universe is largely thanks to the invention of the tartufo in the 1950s plenty of families in the town made gelato before this, but it’s the tartufo that really put Pizzo on the map.

Today the tartufo di Pizzo is recognised as significant part of Italy’s heritage. It has been given IGP-protected status, meaning that the dessert must be made in Pizzo to be called as such. Artisans in the town don’t just make desserts for customers who walk through their doors, they also make thousands of tartufi to be shipped all over Italy.

If you want to try making your own, check out Calabrian chef Francesco Mazzei’s stunning recipe he makes his own chocolate and hazelnut ice creams from scratch, before freezing, churning, shaping and filling with chocolate sauce and sugared hazelnuts. He then seals the bomb and wraps it in parchment paper before a generous dusting of cocoa powder gives the tartufo its signature finish. Making your own is the only way to truly appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into a good tartufo, but if you want to taste the real thing, you’ll have to go to Pizzo.