We get through a lot of tubs of Ben and Jerry’s at our house. At Bruised Passports we like ice cream. We like it a lot.
This also means we’ve now tasted ice cream in over 30 countries. Naturally, we do not take the task of finding a good ice cream parlour lightly. So imagine our surprise when we went to France and had the best ice cream we’ve had. Ever. Anywhere.
We stumbled on Fenocchio while we were driving through Côte d’Azur. Locals told us it is something of an institution in Nice, and we decided to go test it for ourselves. It is fairly easy to find in Nice’s Old Town but there are lots of ice cream parlours with similar names in the streets surrounding Fenoccio’s gelateria. We knew we had found the original when we saw a long, squiggly queue outside one shop. We waited, had a scoop each. Joined the queue again. Had seconds.
But it didn’t stop there. We were in France for a week-long road trip, and discovered Fenocchio on our third day there. For the next four days, we went back every day, every single day. We even managed a cheeky scoop for breakfast on our last day there, just before we drove to the airport.
Fenocchio’s ice creams have a creaminess and a deep, intense flavour that is hard to put into words. They have a number of outlandish flavours, and we made sure we tried as many of them as we possibly could (all in the name of research, of course!). The lavender and orange blossom ice creams, both made of flavours indigenous to the South of France, are to die for. They’re floral, incredibly silky, and just perfect.
Even if you’re unwilling to step out of your comfort zone and opt for a traditional flavour, you’re in for a treat. We tried the chocolate (always Vid’s first choice), nocciolato, hazelnut, and nougat flavours and each was better than the last.
It’s not very often that you’ll hear us praise an ice cream parlour to the skies, but this one deserves it. Make sure you pop in for a scoop (or dozen) if you’re in the area.
Address: Fenocchio, Maître Glacier2, place Rossetti 06300 Nice France website: http://www.fenocchio.fr/eng_
Cactus Ice-cream anyone?
Yum! That ice cream looks amazing. We too love ice cream and love trying other types around the world. The pistaccio and fig in Morocco were interesting!
Fig ice-cream- nommm! We must go back to Morocco for that …. Have you guys tried beer ice-cream in Prague? That’s quite the experience too 🙂
We’re in Paris right now and will definitely go here if we go to Nice – forwarding to Vicky. Cheers!
Awesome- tell us how you like Fennochio…While you’re in Paris, you MUST try the salty caramel crepes at Creperie Bretton- you will love them (http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Restaurant_Review-g187147-d1008112-Reviews-Creperie_Bretonne-Paris_Ile_de_France.html). Also have falafels at Chez Hanna (http://www.timeout.com/paris/en/restaurants/chez-hanna) if you guys like Arabic food. In fact the entire La Marais area is really nice to walk around- it’s full of artsy galleries, vintage boutiques et al
The best ice cream we had was in Bar Nettuno in Salerno, Italy. Small place but so popular and crowded for such a small sleepy town.
We bore rain and went thru great lengths, not to mention dragged our one year old w us just to cross this place after every meal
Aaah Preeti- bookmarking Bar Nettuno for when we’re in Salerno. You will probably see it on Bruised Passports sometime 🙂
Go to Old Bridge Gelateria in Rome, right outside Vatican! Their Gelatos were out of the world!! specially their fruit flavours! All of them!
Siddharth we were at Old Bridge just last month- good pick, their ice-creams are stunning (for lack of a better word) 🙂
Looks yum!!!! We are doing a mini French vacation in December enroute to India and Nice and Paris are the two cities we plan to hit. We are always looking for local things to try and this post on ice cream just made my day 🙂
Sukanya try and visit the Absinthe Bar in Antibes (we wrote an article about it too). It’s a cute li’l bar and the perfect place to spend a great evening in South France 🙂
I’m here in Nice but just realized the ice cream place is only open March-November. Must come back!
Oops – you definitely NEED to go back for it 😉
We love ice cream so much that we hunt for the best ones wherever we are travelling to! We had our very favorite gelato in a small gelateria in Florence which is what got us hooked!It had actual whole strawberries in which made it unforgettable. Thanks for a great read.
That sounds incredible – I love strawberry anything, so I’d totally be all over it 🙂
Guys, you just made my day with this article. I find it the most usefull for planning the road trip from Barcelona to Monaco and I can hardly wait to go here to try lot of icecream! Thank you:)
Hey Lavinia, we are so happy to know that our post helped you in planning for your trip.Happy ‘ice creaming’ to you:)
I have always loved eating ice cream and whenever I get a chance I never miss eating ice cream and your ice cream taste and recipe is really amazing I hope you will give us more delicious ice cream information in future.