SHARING THE PASSION FOR THE HAND crafted
-Delacrem-
Who you are and what you do.
My name is Massimo Pignata. I am from Piamonte, Italy, land of mountains, hazelnuts and chocolate makers. During my career (both studying and professional) I’ve had very different experiences , until I found the courage to do what I had been wanting to do for a long time: produce hand crafted ice-creams, with pure ingredients, recovering the flavours of the milk ice-cream shop where my grandparents use to go. In this way, I left my job in tourism and in professional training and begun to work in a recently opened ice-cream shop of a friend that I had met in a workshop on ice-creams who had the same ideas that I had. I stayed with him for a long time producing and selling ice-creams, creating and modifying recipes, discovering ingredients and providers. In fact, we grew together, making that year’s experience a treasure with no price.
I moved to Barcelona, I started trying local ice-creams and getting to know the city and its people’s customs. I took a confectionery’s course at “Espai Sucre” where new horizons appeared.
Not wanting to start a business for tourists, nearly two years after my arrival, and thanks to the help and energy of my girlfriend, I opened DelaCrem, a business which is the evolution of the initial idea. This is a small and well taken care of business where, besides the ice-creams made according to the initial ideas, people can enjoy our cakes, buns and biscuits; everything is handmade by us and goes along with a good coffee. A nice business, with a terrace on the pedestrian street, where you can eat good handmade products and have a nice time.
Silvia, Brazilian pastry cook known at “Espai Sucre”, is in charge of cakes and buns (I love her brownies and lemon pies). I am in charge of ice-creams and biscuits, and of making sure that customers receive a good service and leave my business with a smile in their faces.
How did you begin with this?
I started because I was curious about genuine things and I wanted to do something of my own. Besides, my parents are self-employed and experience has taught me that the sons and daughters of people who are self-employed usually look for jobs with responsibility and self-fulfilment. I should also add that the Slow Food movement, which was very strong in Piamonte, influenced my adventure, with its promotion of old flavours and the best handmade gastronomy.
What is the first thing that you do when you get to your shop?
Before I get to my shop I have to control the amount of ice cream for each flavour and measure in which amount I want to produce. And only once I’ve changed my clothes and I have put the apron on I feel comfortable to start. I then get my recipes for production, but I have to admit that in most cases I am tempted to change them a little bit in order to improve them. “What if I add a little bit more of sugar and less of this? Will it be creamy or will it be too much?”. This is how I do little changes and note them down in my notebook.
What makes you special?
The passion for wanting to do something of top-quality. These are things that take more time and more money, but if I allow myself to produce something that I like more, my customers will also like it more and this will be a guarantee of quality for my business.
In fact, what makes me different at a practical level from the majority of ice-cream makers is that:
1. I have the recipe for each flavour of ice-cream. I do not use common basis. This takes more time, but the result, I believe can be felt.
2. I do not have a big freezer. What I produce goes directly to the ice-creams bar, fresh, creamy and ready to be sold. This forces me to produce every day (at least during high season). This means more time for quality.
3. I do not save ingredients. I’ve looked for the cream that I liked the most. I have been trying and I have kept the chocolates that I believe are the best. Eggs, cheese, yogurt are natural and fresh (I am not sure whether my yogurt ice-cream –made without powders-has live milk ferments). Hazelnut is the same that I am in love with in Italy. Pistachio is imported from a company in Bronte, the home of Mediterranean pistachio; turrón is from Jijona; milk’s sweet from Argentina; vanilla from Madagascar. Fruit I buy in the markets of the city or, when one needs to control even more its maturity degree, in the neighbourhood’s shops. I only use fruit of the season and I only use frozen fruit with strawberries (out of the season) and passion fruit. I am not a good customer of companies that sell powders for ice-creams. Even worse for sellers of colourings and preservatives.
1+2+3+passion for making things right equals very good quality.
Which one is your favourite ice-cream?
Hazelnut’s ice-cream, of course.
In 2010, Massimo opens Delacrem, an ice cream parlour with its own philosophy of producing hand crafted ice cream.
In a very short time, Jordi Luque became his most faithful customer. Jordi knew better than anyone about ice cream, cakes and cookies. And he established a solid friendship with Massimo. This is how, when chatting one day, they starting thinking about the place and how it should have more of an atmosphere that reflected Massimo’s way of making ice cream.
So in March 2011 we started to work together. Our work was to be developed along two lines: graphics and interior design. The most important thing was the right beginning: getting to know Massimo, to know his workplace and his way of working, and, of course, try his ice creams and other delicious hand made products: everything to extract the essence of Delacrem and to see in which direction to take the graphics and the shop.
Massimo’s and Delacrem’s values would be based on what was already being done; values such as the human and individual touch, appreciating what is hand-made and special, care for details, a taste for the traditional, and an in depth knowledge of the work itself.
Based on these values a declaration was written up and the attempt was made to give the Delacrem locale aesthetic coherence and a clearer identification with its creator.
This is how we began to work on different graphic pieces and on the proposals for the interior design that we are presently developing hand in hand with Massimo Pignata, the soul of Delacrem, and Jordi Luque. Also, Randi Vergés is collaborating in the design and illustration.
This is one of the most gratifying projects we are working on. Because we share a passion for hand made products with Massimo, because we are learning about the way in which he makes the product, and because it is also a luxury to be able to enjoy his ice cream and delicious hand crafted products every time we visit the ice cream parlour.
But this is an integrated project, so we have also begun work on the online part. Our aim is to share the values online, show the work and try to transmit the sensations one gets when tasting the products. Bit by bit the web, other communications elements online and the facebook contents should bring this world even closer to more people.
