Snow Palace: Fennocchio, Cone of Plenty

It’s a relic of old Nice, a place you don’t mind visiting whether you’re a tourist or a local. Fennocchio, an ice cream parlor on Place Rossetti, was taken over by Joseph and Louise in 1966 under the same name. They turned it into an innovative home where the number of recipes rivaled their originality. But if everyone knows this Fennocchio, in the most recent (1998) rue de la Poissonnerie, few “go up” To the town of La Gouette, which is ten kilometers from Nice in altitude.

However, Joseph and Louise settled there for their retirement, and there again their son Frederick employed his only son, Francis, while he prospered the family business. Therefore, it is in La Gaude that the first Fenocchio laboratory was opened in 1995, and in 2007, another large laboratory and a boutique. This is also the place we choose to enjoy ice cream on the terrace.

Because in the atmosphere of this hinterland of Nice, where the oleanders hide the dark life badly, the hard-working and bureaucratic California of the 1960s has everything: sun and striking architecture. Fenocchio is housed in the former workgroup building of IBM, an American computer company whose offices are located across the street. Built by Marcel Breuer, a student of the Bauhaus known for the Weasley chair, these elegant concrete blocks exude brutality and are reminiscent of UNESCO’s Parisian headquarters built by the same Breuer and his colleagues Zehrfus and Nervi.

The secret of cocoa sorbet

This idea may not be premeditated, but seats in the shape of melted ice cream in a crushed cone, which recalls the studies of Robert Venturi, Dennis Scott Brown, and Steven Isenor in their article. teaching las vegas, It gives the impression of following a guided tour of the tensions between utopianism and realism in American architecture from the 1960s to the 1970s.

Having said that, choosing one of the 35 flavors of ice cream offered at the window seems pretty simple. A beautiful strawberry ice cream triumphs in an armchair-like cone, under which hides another concoction and a famous family secret: cocoa sorbet. Post-clicks on the tongue, a delicious balance of bitter and sweet, while the creamy speculoos has it all in a cozy bed where you can take a nap. Finally, the strawberry, with its texture close to granita, reminds us that an ice cream is an ice cream, with grains. She swallows herself, crushes herself, folds herself, licks herself, stabs herself.

Also, at the tables, the children each follow their own technique. Some push the ice cream to the bottom of the cone, others taste it with a spoon and then eat a normal biscuit, some make the tip of the nose, others the edge of their mouth or even with their fingers. But everyone agrees on one thing: an ice cream is savored in silence, gazing into the distance, in a suspended time with no room for architectural and aesthetic considerations. Eating ice cream means enjoying it.

address 1176, Route de Saint-Laurent, La Gout (Alpes-Maritimes). Such. : 04-92-11-03-55. Open Tuesday to Saturday 9am to 7pm and Sunday 9am to 12:30pm.

Highly recommended flavor Cocoa Sorbet was invented by Frederic Fenocchio over thirty years ago.

Bill €2.50 per scoop.