The best gelato I’ve ever had was from a gelateria in Rome. The second best was at Sweetaly, a new gelato spot on State Street.
After talking with owner Francesco Amendola a few weeks ago, I wasn’t all that surprised by the gelato’s quality. After all, he told me he “learned it from the best gelato chefs in Italy.”
Amendola grew up in Southern Italy, in Calabria. Though both from Italy, he and his wife, Lisa, met in the early ‘90s in the States while in college in Utah. After graduating, they moved back to Italy, where they ran an organic supermarket for seven years.
During that time, they developed an appreciation for organic, high-quality food. One day, over scoops of gelato, they wondered if they should open a shop of their own.
They wouldn’t open one in Italy. No. The market was too saturated and the product was already perfected. They decided they would bring authentic gelato to America, where their previous experience with the product had been, for lack of a better word, underwhelming.
Amendola knew that if he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. Nothing would be cheapened. Everything would be authentic, as if you’d stumbled into a shop in Italy. As he said, “You can’t just open a gelato shop and improvise.”
To learn the craft, he attended school in Italy, studying at two of the country’s premier gelato schools: Università dei Sapori in Perugia and the Gelato University in Bologna. There, he learned mathematical and chemical formulas to formulate a base that stays consistently creamy and balanced.
Then, in 2014, he and his family moved to the U.S., where they opened their first Sweetaly location in Utah, then a second, building a loyal following over the next dozen years.
Santa Barbara came onto their radar around 2022 when their daughter, Sophie, started school at SBCC. Amendola visited her and thought Santa Barbara was the most beautiful town he’d ever seen in the United States, “by far.”
Growing up in the family business, watching her parents make gelato, learning the craft and absorbing the standards that defined their shops, Sophie started floating around the idea of opening a shop in Santa Barbara. When a gelateria at 401 Paseo Nuevo closed its doors last year, Amendola knew it was a sign. Plus, the location was perfect — it was already equipped for gelato.
They officially opened up shop on August 1, and Amendola said public reception has been incredible. “The Santa Barbara community has been really warm and welcoming — we couldn’t be happier than this, honestly.”
In the dozen-plus years he’s been making gelato, Amendola has never strayed from his commitment to making a truly authentic product. “To me, the most important thing is to bring a little bit of our culture [to] the United States,” he said. “…We never cut corners because of that.”
Unlike many large chains that produce frozen desserts in central factories and ship them out, Sweetaly’s gelato is made on-site, in small batches, daily. Its base uses just five ingredients, and toppings come from Italy: pistachios from Sicily; hazelnuts from Northern Italy; almonds from Apulia, a region in Southern Italy. Nothing is premixed or rushed. Everything is authentic.
Amendola credits Sophie with the idea to open a spot in Santa Barbara. She is planning to take over the Santa Barbara location soon, though she’s currently in Italy awaiting visa approval. In the meantime, Amendola is serving up authentic Italian gelato in Santa Barbara, one scoop at a time.
The best part? Santa Barbara’s Italian community is already becoming regulars. “It tells us we’re doing something good,” Amendola laughed. “If the Italians approve.”
Sweetaly Gelato is located at 401 Paseo Nuevo and is open noon-10 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-9 p.m. on Sunday. See sweetaly.com.
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