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The impossibly smooth consistency is what hits you first. Then it’s the flavor that holds back, only to fly forward in an intense rush. A scoop of frozen dessert doesn’t seem the sort of dish to carry such nuances or inexplicable excellence, but this is authentic Italian gelato crafted by an award-winning chef from Rome.

Simone Romano’s gelato, served for years at Gelateria San Pancrazio, enjoyed an impressive reputation in a city with high expectations. Now his work takes place in Baton Rouge at Latte e Miele (Italian for milk and honey), the Highland Road shop that opened in April to an almost instant following. Lines sprawl on weekend nights, and once they’re in, patrons tend to linger, says co-owner Luca Di Martino, who opened the business with his father, retired physician Corrado Di Martino, and Romano, his cousin.

“It’s amazing to see people just come in and hang out,” Di Martino says. “We’ve been overwhelmed by the interest and enthusiasm.”

If part of the agenda at Latte e Miele is to establish an authentic gathering place akin to Italian gelaterias, the other is a bold reclamation of seasonal, local goods and Old World preparation methods used to produce a beloved Italian dessert.

“We don’t use any preservatives or salt, and we start by going to the market about three times a week,” Di Martino says. “I’m all about keeping it as local as possible. It’s better for the community, better for quality control, and we’re discovering the area has incredible ingredients to work with.”

Summer flavors included fig, strawberry, blueberry and peach from produce grown on Louisiana farms, many of them small-scale operations. The honey used to flavor the signature flavor, latte e miele, comes from a producer in Colfax, La. Kleinpeter Farms provides the milk. Other ingredients come straight from Italy, including coveted pistachio oil from a village outside Noto in Sicily. The chocolate starts off in bricks and arrives from Perugia.

Simone Romano (left to right), Dr. Corrado Di Martino 
and Luca Di Martino.

The Di Martinos and Romano came to Louisiana by way of Corrado’s second wife, a Baton Rouge native. Corrado had retired from medicine when, a few yeas ago, he developed an itch to open a gelato shop like the kind found in his native Italy. Boston was his first choice; it was where he’d raised his three sons. But after an exhaustive search, retail rentals proved cost-prohibitive.

Baton Rouge emerged as a fresh alternative. Corrado visited potential locations and settled on a freestanding building in a Highland Road strip mall whose placement could draw successfully from nearby neighborhoods and from the interstate. Meanwhile Luca was living in Boston, but after Latte e Miele became a fast success, he moved to Baton Rouge. He says he wasn’t sure what to expect, never having spent time in the South, but that the response has exceeded all expectations. They’ve attracted loads of regulars and have found Louisiana’s burgeoning Eat Local culture an exciting backdrop.

Gelato is a seemingly uncomplicated dessert comprising three elements: milk, sugar or another sweetener and a signature ingredient, like a fruit, nut or confection. But getting it right is tricky. The final outcome depends on the balance struck between fat, protein and sugar—an alchemy that changes from batch to batch, says Corrado. Romano begins every day stove-side where he combines, tastes and adjusts the mix until the right composition emerges. “He has an innate sense,” Corrado says.

Romano, with Luca assisting, completes each of the day’s flavors and finishes them one by one in a specialty gelato freezer maker from Italy. Next, they go in the case, where they make a stunningly colorful impression. Dense, yet malleable, each bin of gelato seems fixed in inviting, timeless waves.

It’s a lengthy, exhausting process, but the team believes their Old World preparation methods set Latte e Miele apart. “None of this is pre-made,” says Luca. “It’s the real thing,”