We are on our way to Portofino early, in an attempt to enjoy the candy-colored village before the inevitable crowds arrive. A relaxing, luxurious girls’ weekend filled with trofie al pesto and pansotti alla salsa di noci, stuffed anchovies, along with sips of barsotto to wash it all down, seems like just the thing to cure the blues brought on by a stretch of rainy days in the city. It’s none of these delicacies, however, that turn our dispositions sunny. Rather, our lasting obsession, our recurring craving, is something we’d never even heard of before: a gloriously sumptuous ice cream cup known as il paciugo.
We find the paciugo popping out on the daily menu of Gelateria Bar San Giorgio–the only unrecognizable word on the shop’s charming daily menu, pinned with delicate pink letter magnets. A mystery to many, hardly known outside its home province, the gelato, as the shopkeeper informs us, is a choice of locals and connoisseurs whose name derives from Ligurian dialect “un pasticcio”, meaning “a mess”.
Order one, and you’ll receive an Italian version of an ice cream sundae: an extra-large, cold glass cup filled with a veritable mishmash of fresh seasonal fruit (berries, peaches, and apricots during summer), topped with vanilla or crema gelato, and in turn adorned with whipped cream and succulent glazed sour cherries. The zesty acidity of the dark sour cherries, no matter how caramelized, always shines through, and forms the perfect complement to the sweetness of the gelato and the fluffiness of the whipped cream. Add the refreshing fresh fruit, and you’ve got the perfect balance of flavors–and proof that chaos sometimes is the key. The treat makes a quintessential summer merenda when in Portofino (though we can’t deny indulging in it for breakfast as well).
Paciugo’s origins date back to 1924, when Ms. Lina Repetto, the owner of Bar Excelsior on the iconic piazzetta of Portofino, was playing around and combined crema gelato and whipped cream, adding a splash of grenadine syrup in a generously large glass. The name came later, when a customer asked the most obvious question: “What’s it called?” Lina, a Genovese woman of few words, promptly answered, “u lé un paciugo” (“it’s a mess”).
Its fame, however, didn’t grow until the 1960s, when Mina and Walter Chiari indulged in the decadent cup, just as they did in their romance, on a terrace in beautiful Bogliasco overlooking the Ligurian Sea–immortalized by the paparazzi, the paciugo found itself starring alongside dolce vita era celebs.
Sixty years later, the gossip has died down, but the gelato is still served to much fanfare (ours) in the heart of the picturesque La Piazzetta, a longtime symbol of Portofinese glamor. Open since 1924, Gelateria Bar San Giorgio, adjacent to Splendido’s sister hotel Splendido Mare, with its quaint pine-green gelato window, framed against an antique pink wall, certainly lives up to its century-old charm and transports us into a scene reminiscent of a Wes Anderson film.
We’re basking in the sun to finally absorb as much vitamin D as possible, and an elegant elderly lady with her tinted golden hair in an updo reads il Giornale while sipping her second espresso. A man in a tailored butter yellow vest blends into the painted houses as he walks his Dachshund on a bright red leash. This square–enclosed between Molo Umberto I to the right and Cala Marconi to the left, and overlooking Portofino’s Marina–has been one of Italy’s most fashionable open-air living rooms. It has acted as the hangout for movie stars of the caliber of Ava Gardner, Frank Sinatra, Brigitte Bardot, Sofia Loren, and Elizabeth Taylor, to name just a few, who transformed what used to be a simple fishing village into a jet-set location.
In such a picture-perfect place, much of whose brand comes from being perfectly manicured and curated, the unabashedly messy paciugo is like a breath of fresh air–exactly what’s needed to remind you that Portofino is not just a stiff tourist hotspot, but a lived-in place with a long local history.
We talk about making it at home–“it can’t be that hard and we’re great at making messes”–but the truth is we’re too scared to ruin such a sweet memory. Some things (or maybe all things) are just better tasted at the source… and we’re not mad about having one more reason to get away from the drab city and drive to the paciugo-colored coastline of Liguria.
