Gelato Roma

Gelato Roma owners Yuri Aristarco and Daniela Burlando bring their love of great food and their authentic knowledge of exceptional gelato to their burgeoning business based in Nelson Tasman.

Yuri and Daniela’s story is one in which passion and hard work combine and are channeled into a range of products that is a true expression of the couple’s love of great gelato.

It’s also a story about having the courage to make a move across the world to start a new life, all while doing business in a second language in a country that’s about as far away from your home town as you can get.

Now, eight years on, the couple and their two children have become much-loved Nelson community members and have a made a real mark on the artisan gelato scene, winning numerous awards and accolades for their delicious gelato and sorbet.

Gelato Roma is now poised to make inroads into the North Island with a growing presence in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland – and a new kiosk in the Coromandel which opened on Monday.

Yuri is a great interviewee on the topics of growing a successful business in New Zealand, especially having arrived from a very different business environment overseas, what it’s like to be a member of the ‘food hub’ that Nelson Tasman is becoming, what it means to be a true artisan producer (as opposed to the pretenders), and the craft of gelato making. Yuri and Daniela use only the best quality non homogenised milk and produce ingredients such as their own blend of high-quality sugar, caramel and marscapone from scratch – there are no powders or pre-mixes here.