From the New York Times: For This Guy, Gelato Is the Answer By Alex Witchel At first glance, Il Laboratorio del Gelato seems like your standard-issue hipper-than-thou storefront on the Lower East Side: the paint is blinding white, the equipment is brand-new and the guy who owns it, Jon F. Snyder, is a babe. But this babe's mother and cousin are standing in the back, side by side, cutting up nectarines for the sorbet. "Ice cream is in his blood," Phyllis Snyder said proudly, watching her son hoist a carton of pineapples out of the refrigerator. "He's third generation." Mr. Snyder did work at his family-owned Carvel franchise while growing up in Westchester County, but he is better known for the gelato company he founded when he was all of 19 and sold when he turned 25: Ciao Bella. Now 38, he's lived a few lifetimes since then, having gone back to college - much to his mother's delight - gotten an M.B.A. from Columbia and traded stocks, first for Lehman Brothers, then for ABN Amro, the Dutch bank. His latest lifetime began after Sept. 11, 2001, when his brother Gary, a Lehman Brothers employee who worked on the 40th floor of the north tower of the World Trade Center, was diverted by the police on his way into the building and survived. After that, Mr. Snyder said, all he could think about was reinvesting in Manhattan, doing what he does best. He was disappointed, he said, when Ciao Bella moved to Irvington, N.J., in 1999. "I had been proud that it was a Manhattan business," he said, "though I understand that when a business grows, space is so expensive here. But there was something sad about it leaving. This is a chance to return to the roots of what Ciao Bella was." It is also a return to his own roots as an ice cream fanatic who started developing his passion when he was 13 under the tutelage of his grandmother Antoinette Ceriale. Mrs. Ceriale, who died eight years ago, ran the Carvel drive-in in Cortlandt Manor, N.Y., for 30 years before passing it on to her four daughters in 1980. And while Mrs. Snyder, Mrs. Ceriale's second daughter, is so excited by her son's month-old venture that she has worked here most days in addition to her duties as a night nurse at the Veterans Affairs hospital in Montrose, N.Y., the moment is also bittersweet. Because after 51 years of ownership, the family is selling the Carvel. "We've gotten older, and if the owners aren't there it just doesn't run right," Mrs. Snyder said. But the tradition continues. When Mr. Snyder was growing up, the cousins all worked at the store each summer. And last week, his cousin Ellen Smith seemed perfectly content to drop her fruit knife and wait on customers as Mr. Snyder sat and talked at the front of his store at 95 Orchard Street, between Delancey and Broome Streets. Despite his dedication to New York, his personal energy is mellow enough to qualify as Californian. The most worked up he got all day was over how many skins should go into the Black Grape Sorbet. "My grandmother was always at the Carvel, very hands-on," he recalled. "In one machine we had vanilla, in the other, chocolate, and sometimes we made lemon ice or orange sherbet ourselves. But I was the only one of the cousins who wanted to stay until 3 in the morning and make extra flavors." Once it was time for college, however, he enrolled at the Colorado School of Mines with the idea of getting an engineering degree. But his heart wasn't in it. He was much more interested in a place in Greenwich Village called Angelica that sold gelato, an ice cream he had never tasted before. "It was really icy but intensely flavored," he recalled. "I loved it." He traveled to Italy the summer after his freshman year and became obsessed - first with the gelato he ate there, then with the idea of bringing it here. "Nothing was going to stop me from doing it," he said. "I wanted to make a great ice cream." Unlike American ice cream, he said, which generally has a high ratio of both butterfat and air, gelato has a lower ratio of each, so the consistency is creamier and the flavoring is more intense because less fat masks it. But there's certainly no mistaking it for Tasti D-Lite. Each rich mouthful tastes like baby food for angels. Big fat ones. Mr. Snyder started Ciao Bella in 1984 with $25,000 from his family and friends. "It took three years to see any money back," he said. "I worked seven days a week, and in the second year I paid myself minimum wage. Everything went for expenses." Ciao Bella began with the same conception as Il Laboratorio del Gelato: a wholesale business for chefs and caterers who wanted to work with Mr. Snyder to create customized flavors. The retail component was secondary. Mr. Snyder's first big break was getting Charlie Palmer, then the chef at River Cafe, to taste some free samples. Eventually, Mr. Snyder supplied 50 restaurants and packaged pints for Balducci's and Dean & DeLuca. "I put my grandmother's picture on the containers as a dedication to her," he said. "She went to Balducci's to give out tastings at the store." Though Mr. Snyder started to see profits in Ciao Bella's fourth year, he felt too burned out to continue. "I had one employee, but I was pretty much running it on my own," he said. "I was making the product myself, doing the selling, delivery and distribution. It had grown to the point where it was ready to take off. And I was ready to go back to school." He sold the company in 1989 to F. W. Pearce for $100,000. "I give him a lot of credit," Mr. Snyder said. "He took on a partner, and I'm very proud of how they've grown the product. They sell in 25 states now." Mr. Pearce, reached by phone, said Ciao Bella expects sales of $10 million this year. Still, he seemed less than thrilled about Mr. Snyder's return to the business, even though the noncompete clause he signed when he sold the company has expired. "We certainly don't need another competitor," Mr. Pearce said. "When Jon sold the company to me it wasn't a terribly lucrative venture, so I'm trying to figure out what he's thinking." Mr. Pearce's partner, Charlie Apt, has visited Mr. Snyder's new store and tasted the gelato. "It was a good product," he allowed, "though I didn't love every flavor." Wade Moises does. Mr. Moises, the sous-chef at Lupa, happens to live around the corner from Il Laboratorio del Gelato and recently ordered a batch of hazelnut for his restaurant. "It was awesome," he said. "I've been using Ciao Bella for the last few years, but they're making thousands of gallons now. In the smaller batches you can really tell the difference in taste." "I have one machine here," Mr. Snyder said, "with everything done by hand. I really want to be a custom lab for chefs and caterers. I think New York needs its own artisanal ice cream factory. And after 9/11, I especially wanted to be downtown." Mr. Snyder's own life was at loose ends last September. With the profits from Ciao Bella he had gotten his bachelor's and master's degrees from Columbia; he worked at Lehman Brothers for five years, then at ABN Amro, which laid him off in June 2001. "The whole corporate structure, after having your own business. . . . " he said wanly. "I was trying to figure out what to do next." On 9/11, after his brother turned up safe and his family calmed down, Mr. Snyder said his thinking started to crystallize. "I decided to go back to basics," he said. "Somehow, the idea of ice cream and being sad when Ciao Bella left the city, the idea of bringing something back to New York, all came together." Il Laboratorio del Gelato is next door to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and down the street from the recently relocated Guss's Pickles. The heritage of Orchard Street suits him perfectly. You can't get more artisanal than a pushcart. "In some ways I am repeating Ciao Bella," Mr. Snyder said, "but now I have a different recipe, with less of an Italian focus. I'm trying to source as locally as possible. Twenty years ago you couldn't find great ingredients here, but things have changed." He has changed too, having experienced the anonymity of working for large corporations. "I just don't think bigger is better anymore," he said. "It's a great thing that my grandfather built the Carvel when America was growing and it was all about franchising. But now, to me, something like the Starbucks phenomenon is just sad. It's too easy for someone to pay for a franchise rather than try to create something of his own. It's much more interesting to find a place that's individual." From New York Magazine: Restaurant Openings & Buzz EDITED BY ROBIN RAISFELD Week of March 3, 2003 Frozen Assets When Il Laboratorio del Gelato opened on the Lower East Side last summer, ice-cream connoisseurs from every Zip Code trekked to Orchard Street for scoops of vibrantly flavored gelato and sorbet concocted by Jon Snyder, the creator of the Ciao Bella brand (il Laboratorio del Gelato and its principals are not affiliated in any way with Ciao Bella Gelato Co., Inc. and have not had any such affiliation since 1989 when the business, together with its recipes and production methods, was sold to its present owners.) Since then, the gelato's worked its way onto dessert menus around town (like Mary's Fish Camp and Pastis) and finally, as of this week, into gourmet-store freezers. Ten flavors, from the classic (vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry) to the creative (toasted almond, white chocolate), are available in snappy square eighteen-ounce tubs at Citarella (1250 Sixth Ave. at 49th St. 212-332-1599), Grace's Marketplace (1237 Third Ave, 212-737-0600), and Tuller Premium Foods (199 Court Street, Brooklyn; 718-222-9933). From Bizbash New York FOOD: Gelato Redux By Jill Musguire Watch out Ciao Bella--there's a new gelato on the block: Il Laboratorio del Gelato is the latest venture from Jon Snyder (creator of the original Ciao Bella, which he subsequently sold in 1989) and churns out 50 rotating gourmet gelato and sorbet flavors, including white chocolate, kahlua and toasted almond. Snyder can also custom-blend flavors for events. Prices start at $20 a gallon. From the Daily News: Eats: Il Laboratorio del Gelato By Irene Sax Photo: Monaster NEWS From Classicists like vanilla; sensualists choose chocolate. But I defy anyone to resist the pistachio ice cream at Il Laboratorio del Gelato, a tiny, clean-as-a-lab shop next to the Tenement Museum on the lower East Side. Made from a mix of Sicilian and French nuts, it has the mouth-feel of cool, semi-solid cream and a pure pistachio scent — nothing like the super-almond whammy of most brands. And the pistachio is only slightly more wonderful than the blueberry ice cream made with organic berries from the Union Square Greenmarket, and the caramel ice cream flavored with cooked sugar made in the rear of the store. Owner Jon Snyder has ice cream in his blood. His grandfather designed Carvel shops and his grandmother ran one until Snyder's parents took it over. When Jon was 19, he went to Italy, discovered gelato and dropped out of college to start Ciao Bella with two cousins. They grew it and sold it; he went back to school and was working on Wall Street last summer when he decided to return to his roots. "There's nothing wrong with Ciao Bella," he says of the now-national brand. "But I figured New York needs its own ice cream." Although he plans to supply restaurants, he also sells cups and cones ($2.75, $3.25 and $3.75) in his white-walled, blue-tiled "gelato land" (as the staff answers the phone) where, one day last week, his mother was picking grapes off their stems so he could make grape sorbet. From New York Magazine: Back Into the Cold By Robin Raisfeld In the early eighties, after an influential and high-calorie summer vacation in Italy, 19-year-old Jon Snyder left college to start Ciao Bella, the little gelato company that could. Burned out after nearly six years spent cold-calling chefs and custom-blending flavors, he sold the brand to a new owner who eventually gave it a national identity and a coveted slot on just about every dessert menu in town. Snyder went off to do other things, like earn an M.B.A. at Columbia and trade equities on Wall Street. But the Bronx-born grandson of Carvel franchisees couldn't get the butterfat out of his system, and everywhere he looked, his past life called to him. "Everybody was always saying they love Ciao Bella. Every restaurant, it's Ciao Bella." New York, he decided, was ready for another premium ice cream — especially since Ciao Bella had moved its production facilities to New Jersey. "I was always proud of the fact that it was a Manhattan business," says Snyder. And since his noncompete clause expired years ago, there was nothing to stop him from importing a batch freezer from Bologna, sourcing the best local ingredients, and opening Il Laboratorio del Gelato in a storefront next door to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, guaranteeing him a steady stream of nostalgic visitors. Although he expects to do mostly wholesale restaurant business, he's also opened a small café serving coffee, shakes, twelve flavors a day, and toppings like homemade hot fudge and fresh berry coulis. In times like these, even M.B.A.'s need something to fall back on. Best Supreme Ice Cream - IL LABORATORIO DEL GELATO Lots of fancy ice creams, gelatos, and ices in town, but none can quite match the perversely named newcomer IL LABORATORIO DEL GELATO, where the technicians and counter force wear white lab coats (cool gimmick) and bustle around like scientists. Only a handful of flavors are available every day. On a recent visit, the tastiest gelato was a puce-colored pistachio of surpassing subtlety, while a fruit-rife strawberry ice cannily avoided the usual mistake: too sweet. - Robert Sietsema From Epinions.com: Il Laboratorio del Gelato -- Great Ice Cream in the Lower East Side by RK Chin The Bottom Line The original creator of Ciao Bella gelato takes ice cream to fresh new heights. The Lower East Side is famous for many things, primarily cheap eats, bargain hunting, and history. Visitors may now have another reason to visit, excellent gelato. Located across the street from the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, and next door to one of two rival pickle stands, sit Il Laboratorio del Gelato which opened a few months ago (in August 2002). The gelato shop resembles a spotless, ultra-chic lab with staff dressed up in white lab coats and busy perfecting a batch of gelato. A small freezer in the front advertises the twelve flavors of the day. The flavors are rotated daily so each day brings something new. In all, there are at least 75 flavors available, and 75 good reasons to try them all. One day when I visited, there was one lady who absolutely wanted to try everything. A scoop of this, a scoop of that, "I must try this, this looks good" all the flavors piled high in a little cup for her. The woman seemed happy, so did Jon Snyder, the owner. Jon Snyder made ice cream before, in fact, he was the creator of Ciao Bella back in the 1980s. It, like Il Laboratorio del Gelato, was just a tiny operation whose mission was to create superb gelato like the kind he first tasted in Italy. It almost worked out for him. Instead, he sold off the Ciao Bella for a fraction of what it is worth today, and embarked on a different career path, first going back to school, and then onto an anonymous job selling stocks. Today, Jon returns to ice cream with a commitment to invest in New York, unlike Ciao Bella who had since moved out of the city. Il Laboratorio del Gelato's quality definitely is in its ingredients, and methods. Fresh cream, sugar, and the finest ingredients available in New York City go into every batch of sorbet, and gelato. Small batches are made to ensure quality, not uniformity. The sample of Nectarine sorbetto I once tried was so dense in flavor, so light in texture, and vivid in color, that I reasoned the store would soon go out of business if they kept using so much fruit. I also tried the Ginger gelato, and it nearly knocked me over so immediate, and pungent its flavor. The ginger was not candied, and it tasted like raw sliced ginger lightly stir-fried in a wok. It probably works well as a palate cleanser in between dishes. With so many interesting choices to choose from that day, I went with the basics--hazelnut, with a scoop of caramel. The hazelnut was amazing with an intense, rich, and nutty flavor. The caramel, on the other hand, was merely ok. It was very delicate, with not too much caramel to it. I soon forgot the caramel, and looked forward to trying the other flavors. Another day I went, and discovered the ginger was back once again. A sample of Kiwi sorbetto flecked with little black seeds tasted exactly like kiwi fruit, a bit tangy and sweet with a slightly icy texture to match. The Chestnut gelato was fantastic with a rich nut-brown color flecked with tiny bits of roasted chestnut skin. The flavor was a kicker, resembling an exceedingly good roasted coffee, but without the lingering coffee aftertaste. With so many flavors to choose from again, the counter girl recommended Pear Williams gelato, and sure enough, it was a good choice. It had an exquisite pear flavor lightly sharpened with a splash of pear brandy. The texture was like the inside of a pear, slightly rough. I made sure I got a scoop of Mango to go along with it. The mango was sublime--not too tart, not too sweet--resembling the flavor of champagne mangos all with a creamy texture that brought back memories of the Good Humor orange and vanilla we all used to enjoy as kids growing up (and still enjoy). With gelato this good, you want to stop and savor the flavors. A small cup should last you a better part of one hour. Prices: $2.75 a small cup (two scoops), $3.25 for a medium, and $3.75 for a large. Pints are $4.75, and $4.50 for two, or more pints. $2-5 for cappuccino, and other assorted drinks, such as affogato (espresso poured over a scoop of gelato.)