BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT:Getting the scoop on gelato

Few sweets lovers can resist a creamy, cold gelato cone on a hot day.

At least that’s what Viktor Benes Bakeries owner Ugo Mamolo was hoping when he expanded his 41-year-old business this spring to include the icy confection.

The Burbank sweets factory owner hired an expert gelato maker from Venice, Italy, last August to work on recipes for his new venture.

“We tested the quality, the flavors,” Mamolo said. “We made sure we had the right recipes before we presented it to the public.”

Up and running for about a month now, Mamolo has by-the-scoop gelato vendors in four Gelson’s markets and an additional one in Martino’s Bakery in Burbank.

But the road to the gelato’s release was a bit rocky.

A small and constantly chilled room had to be constructed especially for the gelato making at Viktor Benes Bakeries by decree of County of Los Angeles Public Health Department, Mamolo said. After 15 years of the Burbank bakery being relatively unchanged, Mamolo was prepared to make the adjustment and had the new room ready in a few months.

The room was cleared for use last month and Italian frozen dessert chef Allessandro Fontana was ready, too.

With an industrial-sized refrigerator, large containers of fresh fruits and imported Sicilian flavoring, some sugar, a gelato machine and little else, Fontana mixes up gelato all day and sometimes into the night, he said.

Because of the small scale of the business at this point, Fontana can fix any flavor a client might want and he is constantly coming up with new recipes, he said.

“We invent a new flavor every time we go to the grocery store,” he said.

Flavors on hand at Martino’s include rocky road, pistachio, tiramisu and some sorbets.

They go for $3.19 a scoop, more than a dollar shy of the smallest ice cream size at nearby Cold Stone Creamery, which costs $4.65.

Hearty chunks of the mountainous gelato piles dwindle daily, Martino’s cashier Maria Garcia said, but people usually don’t come into the bakery just for the gelato.

“They come for pastries,” she said. “But when they see [the gelato] they get it.”

Mamolo is waiting to see if Fontana’s gelato is a sustained hit at Gelson’s and Martino’s to possibly expand the operation.

Right now, Fontana makes and delivers the gelato to all five locations all in the same day, which provides customers with a freshness he takes pride in.

“It doesn’t pass one day between when I made it and when the customers start to eat it,” he said.