Gelateria Artigianale La Sorbettiera

Catrame is the flavour that explains La Sorbettiera: dark chocolate named for the Oltrarno, paired with fiordilatte into something sweet and salty at once. The rest of the counter follows the same instinct, an artisan Florentine gelateria working from seasonal ingredients and a house history it dates to 1934.

A founder-led gelato workshop

The craft story starts young. The founder was fourteen when he began as a helper in the Brustolon family gelateria in Coblenza, Germany, and that apprenticeship set the style: high-quality raw materials, seasonal produce and laboratory work without compromises. He came back to Florence and opened the first La Sorbettiera, and the name has since spread across Piazza Tasso, Santo Spirito, Santa Maria Novella and Ponte Vecchio, with a further shop in Bonn since 2018.

What that produces is not a chef-led restaurant structure but a workshop where classic Florentine craft and rotating creative flavours share one counter.

A walk-up bottega

The format is informal and compact, closer to a neighbourhood gelateria than a dining room. The menu is built for counter choice: cono, coppetta, brioche, vaschetta, affogato al caffè, granita, frappè, mattonella, tiramisù and a house cialda artigianale.

The Piazza Tasso shop sits on a small square on the southern bank of the Arno, off the main tourist track in San Frediano and the wider Oltrarno. The visit is straightforward: read the flavours, which rotate with the season, choose a cone, cup, brioche or take-home format, then step back into Florence. Every flavour is gluten-free, some are lactose-free, and the artisanal wafer is made gluten-free too.

Order Catrame first, then wander

Start with Catrame to understand the personality of the place. Thai moves in another direction entirely, with lemongrass and coconut, while New England 1776 runs on maple syrup and caramelised bacon. The names show a shop that treats gelato as flavour and story at once, drawing on travel and geography without giving up the texture of proper Italian gelato.

The rotating list can also take in chai, cheesecake, coffee cardamom, fig, salted caramel, lime and basil, pistachio, hazelnut, dark chocolate, frutti di bosco and ricotta, along with fruit-based flavours. For coffee, the affogato al caffè is the clearest house format, gelato and espresso in one spoonful. Frappè turns milk and gelato into a shake, and granita adds a Sicilian route through the same counter.