Location: 1418 Dundas Street West, Toronto
Website: https://deathinvenice.ca/

It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Death in Venice, which I remembered being very good, but perhaps not up there with the best in the city.

Well, clearly I was extremely wrong about that, because the flavour I just had at Death in Venice?  Some of the best gelato I’ve ever had.  Crazy good.

The flavour in question: cheeseboard (“made up of all the ingredients of a classic cheeseboard, brie cheese, white wine, pears, jam, honey and berry jam. Perfect balance of sweet and savoury.”)

I’ll admit that I ordered this because it sounded like a fun novelty — the type of flavour that’s more interesting than delicious.  I was 100% incorrect.  Dangerous levels of deliciousness.

I thought the savoury flavour of the cheese might be overwhelming (I’ve had blue cheese ice cream that went a bit too hard on the blue cheese, making it somewhat unpleasant) but it all goes together so well.    There’s a very, very mild savouriness, but it enhances rather than detracts from the sweet gelato.

I wish I had taken a photo of the gelato once I had started eating it — the photo above makes it look a bit plain, but there was actually a pretty generous amount of tasty jam swirled throughout, not to mention walnut chunks that add some nice texture.

There was a lot going on with the flavour here, but it all works so well.  And the quality of the gelato itself was perfectly rich and creamy.  Seriously: top five gelato of my life.

I should note that I came back a week or two later and tried the bourbon and smoked chocolate gelato (“For real chocolate lovers… We smoke our dark chocolate and cook it with bourbon. Once we add cream and milk this thick and dense gelato becomes the ultimate chocolate treat”).  It was just as good, with an intense chocolatiness, and noticeable pops of flavour from the smoke and the bourbon.

You’d think those other flavours might overwhelm the chocolate, but they complement it so well.  Clearly, any ranking of the best gelato in the city that doesn’t include this place is flat-out wrong.

Okay, I’m going to update this one more time, then I should really post it.  I came back another couple of weeks later and tried the soft serve, which features two rotating flavours.  When I went, one of the flavours was chocolate mousse, and holy moly — it was maybe the best soft serve I’ve ever had?  It tasted just like a really great chocolate mousse, but in soft serve form.  It had a profound chocolately flavour, and was intensely creamy and rich.  Ridiculously good.