brrr

Our Passyunk location is now closed Monday-Wednesday.. 

BUT! We are open 11am-10pm Thursday-Sunday to pack up your take home pints and make you a great cup of coffee. 

Not quite like attached video, though. 

Coffee Snobs - watch more funny videos

preach

Work? No, today's gonna be a holiday

The inevitable, unforgiving rain of Philadelphia strikes again. But, Friday nights aren't forever and we shouldn't treat them as such. Monday and Tuesday, you really shone and we're all very proud of you. This Tuesday being my day off, I splurged in a most excellent bike ride - stopping here and there and remembering what Philly is all about. Taking a break to peruse some monthly reading matter, not to mention a refresher and a giggle on pop culture, I saw my favorite leading lady on the cover of Vanity Fair! Her Dolce Vita! The article contained candid photos of her trips to Rome of Audrey in all her simple-chic glory. Of course, I am no princess, but I couldn't help being engulfed in a similar feeling as her Roman Holiday. And, coincidentally enough, later that day I stopped by AIDS Thrift to find a VHS copy. 

The first thing she did with her newfound
freedom was to buy a pair of Roman sandals.
Then she went to the barber's for a pixie cut.
And then she bought herself a gelato.
Simple pleasures all, but as a princess
on the lam in 1953's Roman Holiday, an
unknown actress named Audrey Hepburn
made these pleasures indelible.

Gelato, too? I am so glad to hear you say it.

Proud Adonis

Hey, CapoPenn

I was just reminiscing about your espresso machine and how it exploded milk all over me the last time I lent a hand over there. But that's alright - maybe it was just showboating its awesome power. Really though, the Adonis is a total 3-group Cerberus-like powerhouse. You can pretty much pound out beautiful(such as its name-sake) coffee drinks in no time sans a misstep in milk-steamery then kablooey. All's well after a shift when, fortunately enough, a bar is immediately adjacent to this machine. An americano with a dollop of apple brandy? How kind. See you at happy hour ; )

Love
Jessica of Yunk

Pope Francis says relax & have an espresso

Sure, all the wind-kissed faces on E.Passyunk of late have been imparting to me "Oh, it's too cold for gelato" such and such. A single tear rolls down a cheek as eyes glance up toward our list of flavors. I'll then witness the tundra clad patrons sneak a peek or three at our Cadillac of an espresso machine. The Victoria Arduino Venus Century is literally one in a hundred and deserves to be gawked at. Have you heard the Pope has the first in the edition? It must be a mighty fine day when you are granted the hat of the papacy. So along with being the head of church and monarchy affair, he gets to use this puppy, in fact. So please, don't fret, South Philly - the shots are a-flowin' and the temperature in CapoYunk is fine (a warm 22°C [72°F]) Cheers!

Ready to Eat

I don't know about you, but this warm weather can make a girl dream..

xo Jessica

Capogiro is going to Hollywood!

BEARS SPOTTED AT CAPOGIRO!!

BEARS! They have run rampant at Capogiro! They are terrifying, monstrous, and... DELICIOUS!!??? What kind of BEARS are these you ask? None other then Blissingers own gourmet gummy pandas. These mouth watering organic edible animals have overrun CAPO and they are not going anywhere! I called in animal control last night due to BEAR related worries but they told me I was crazy and there was nothing they could do. So there is only one way I can think to deal with this delicious problem.

Bear-Nana split
(a fun take on a classic dessert)
Fresh Champagne Mango Sorbetto
Fresh Avocado Sorbetto
Fresh Blood Orange Sorbetto
Fresh Banana
Fresh BEARS

Finally! Calm, passive, and delicious BEARS. The fresh sorbetto combined with the fruit is a refreshing and fantastic way to subdue BEARS. All of the textures and flavors work so well together so these BEARS cannot help but be happy. I bet animal control would find me a little less crazy if they tasted one of these bad boys.

Capogiro, home to fresh ingredients, fresh ideas, but most of all...
BEARS!!!!!!

-Joe

(Barista/BEAR expert)

Tiramisu: The mystery that tickles my tongue.

Out of all the great wonders of the world ( Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Great Pyramid of Giza etc...) there is no greater, more delicious wonder than that of Tiramisu. Of course I don't mean the international music sensation, I'm talking about that insanely scrumptious Italian cake that mysteriously revealed itself sometime in 1982 or 83'.

Tiramisu is a layered cake made up of coffee soaked biscuits, mascarpone cheese and liquor (Is it possible to go wrong with coffee, cheese or booze??). The resulting cake is dusted with cocoa powder and is quite beautiful both in aesthetics and in palatableness. Many Italian confectioners argue over the desserts birthplace and creator, one might say that Tiramisu boasts origin stories more intriguing and fanciful than many of todays popular supermens. Despite all the heated debates every single human-being can agree that it's quite the cakey-goodness!

While Tiramisu may be a wildly popular dessert the task of consuming it can be quite the hurdle. Knife? Fork? What are these strange tools?! Have I been transported back to the middle ages? How on earth can I be expected to savor the cheesy goodness while I'm worrying about poking an eye out or biting into some silver prongs?! For years thoughts like this kept me up at night until I discovered Tiramisu Gelato. WHAT A COMBO! It's all the flavor of the cake SWIRLED into creamy awesome goodness! Heck you don't even need a spoon, you can just lick it from atop a fancy french cone!

When everything is said and done I feel that Tiramisu is just plain ol' awesome. Next time you take a bite just pretend you're in a detective novel, slowly unraveling the sweet and delicious mystery that is Tiramisu.

-Ezra

New and Exciting Things at the Yunk!

We get a lot of seasoned Capogiro patrons down here on Passyunk Ave, more than a few of them having been introduced to gelato while spending time in Italy. They seem to know our gelato inside and out, and for these customers especially we're proud to introduce something new, and something they definitely haven't had since that last trip to Rome.
I present you, most treasured foodies, with....gelato spaghetti:Do not adjust your dial. What you're seeing is a blackberry sorbetto 'meatball' nestled in two scoops of fior di latte gelato that has been pushed through a special press, topped off with mixed berry preserves and shaved white chocolate 'parmasean'.
Making its debut at CapoYunk this Saturday, gelato spaghetti is as customizable as anything else you're used to getting here. You choose two flavors- one for the spaghetti itself, and another flavor for the meatball. But that's not all! You get your choice of gravy too: red (berry preserves made with local strawberries, raspberries, currants and wineberries), or brown (house-made hot fudge). In addition to its awesome presentation, it may just be the best sundae you ever tasted. I know you're curious. Possibly a bit skeptical, but that's okay. Have we ever steered you wrong?
And hey, while I'm on the subject of mouth watering toppings, starting this Saturday we'll also begin offering those mixed berry preserves and hot fudge on any of our three sizes of cups! We know you've been asking for them. Panna is complimentary, as usual.

We'll see you this weekend!!
-Maggie

FOOD, Real Food....Healthy Gelato

NO, No, no. Please don't make me eat processed food. It makes me fart. There. I have said it. Just one bite of Kraft mac and cheese and I am done and so are the poor slobs that happen to be in my presence. So sorry. I find it bizarre that my body rebels like this, but it can only help me, really. I have more energy, I feel good, and I am healthy.

Lately I have heard mumblings that gelato is not healthy for you. WHaT?!? Pu-lease people. Do you know what you are eating? Let me enlighten;

MILK, SUGARS, CHOCOLATE, NUTS, THE FRESHEST FRUIT, SOMETIMES THERE'S AN EGG YOLK INVOLVED (hand gathered from free free roaming chickens), LITTLE BIT OF CREAM.


What could be unhealthy in that? No high fructose corn syrup, no red dye number whatever, no diglycerideblahblah, polymobilde..., nothing like that!

We need to get our priorities straight, people. With the exception of fruit that is simply not grown around here (ie, lemons, oranges, pineapples, mangoes, lychee, etc.) all of our fruit is grown locally, within a one hours drive. It is grown without chemicals, without pesticides and it is allowed to VINE RIPEN!! Imagine that. All those natural sugars are allowed to develop and the fruit is picked when it is ready (not prematurely so it can travel 1000s of miles).

Our milk is from a single herd of Scottish Ayreshire Cows that ONLY EAT GRASS and are named Cleopatra and Moxie!!! They are never treated with growth hormones and no antibiotics! These cows live 40 minutes outside of Philly. That's them. Look at em!

Yes, there is sugar in our gelato. All "sweets" have them. One large gelato contains as much sugar as an "all natural smoothie" or a cup of yogurt with fruit. Yes, it is equal to ice cream and froyo as far as sugar is concerned. But where did the fruit and milk used for those items come from? Was the milk from a local Menonnite farmer, the cream from the Amish, and the mint from some high school kids in West Philly? Or did it just come from a box or a truck from...I don't know, do you?

The big difference is that the ingredients that we use are local and delicious and ALL NATURAL, in the truest sense. We hand craft our gelato every day. Nothing is just poured into the top of a machine and pooped out. It is crafted. We are not just blending in fruit out of plastic container or scooping it out of an "imported" can. Real fruit grown by real farmers here in our backyard. Our carbon footprint is small. We care about who we purchase from. Just this second, Dan came in with the first of Glenn's blackberries. Big, luscious, almost ready to burst! I placed the first one in my mouth. They are from Green Meadow Farm.



Me: Holy cow.

Dan: I know.

Me: This is crazy.

Dan: I know.

Me: They cannot taste this perfect.

Dan: I know.

Me: Oh my Gawd..

Dan: Blackberries are my favorites.



In Europe, gelato is considered a health food. Italians go every day for a WALK to their local gelateria where the gelato is made fresh each morning. Europeans are far healthier than us exercise obsessed Americans. Why is that? They eat gelato EVERYDAY!!

Think about it.

Look on the brighter side of life

D'you ever wake up thinking, "I love my life. Today's gonna be a great day!"
It's cheesy. I know. But I do... pretty much everyday.
And it's true, I'm the kind of person who loves ponies and skylines and balloons; someone who believes in the magic of the every day.


And I work in a gelato shop.

[cut the saccharine violins]

Everyone knows gelato is delicious.
But let's get down to the nitty-gritty.
Gelato is a great equalizer.
It doesn't care about your socio-economic class, your race, your sexuality, or anything else... it just wants to be there when you need it.

Gelato allows your palate to be challenged and expand... think about the difference between pineapple mint and pineapple sage sorbetto; do you have a favourite?
I know I do.
Or remember the first time you tried goat's milk with rosemary gelato...
wasn't that something.

For me, it was chocolate with peanut butter gelato, glorious peanut.
Painstakingly ground fresh for each batch, hence all the more rare.
And I don't even like peanuts or peanut butter; it's not something I ate growing up in Germany. But I saw it and thought I should give it a try, reluctantly.
And my mind was blown.

Everyone deserves a little happiness and gelato can help.
Treat yourself to something nice.
A small price to pay for a smile and knowing your day just got a little better.

PHOOD

I've always had a weird struggle with food. When I was about 11 years old I decided that I was frumpy and overweight so, I made the decision to be the first worst vegetarian in all of West Virginia. "Whaddya mean NO MEAT?... You want bacon instead?"

I lasted about 9 years on cereal, ketchup sandwiches and microwave noodles before buckling in college to a two day old Philly Cheese Steak. (YES, I still call them "Philly Cheese Steaks". I also refer to soda as POP and the way you people pronounce "radiator" and "Acme" gives me a full bellied laugh every time. Please don't ever stop.)

Growing up in that yo-yo diet crazed part of the 90's had a huge impact on the way I looked at food. It was my enemy. Fourteen grams of fat a day was the limit. Plain yogurt, black coffee and 5 macadamia nuts for breakfast, cardio for lunch and a 200 calorie plastic-wrapped microwave disaster for dinner. Mom started sneaking vegetable oil into the few meals that I allowed her to prepare for me, simply to keep me alive. (Thanks Mom.) It was my 103 pound summer and I wouldn't do it again if you promised me fame, fortune, and another forbearance on my student loans.

After 28 years on this silicone waif infested planet, I have decided that it's okay to have a healthy bum. I know enough about Photoshop to understand that Demi Moore's hips aren't concave in real life and regardless, Kelso ain't complainin'. The girls walking downtown with legs so thin they disappear if you blur your eyes look pretty friggin' cold this time of year and I'll bet you a dollar they haven't licked the ricotta off a plate of lasagna in a loooong time.

Working and living in Philadelphia has opened my eyes to eating as an experience. The Reading Terminal Market is a gold mine of delicious cheeses (whose names I cannot pronounce), veggies and a smörgåsbord of freshly slaughtered meats! Capogiro makes the richest creamiest most amazing gelato I have ever had and it has COMPLETELY screwed my love affair with ice cream. (I'm sorry baby, it's just not the same anymore...) South Philly Pho is the cheapest most delicious soup in the world. I could quite literally drown myself in the steaming bowl of steak*, sprouts and Sriracha and die a happy girl. The restaurants that I've discovered in Philly make me wish I hadn't wasted those 9 years on ketchup sandwiches. These days I sample foods sorta like I experimented with hallucinogens in high school... "Hey, what's that? Screw it, gimme some."

So, thank you Philly Phoodies for steering me away from canned pasta and boxed mac and cheese. Thank you Steph for your gumbo and Tacy for your stress relief baking. Thank you Capogiro for completely ruining soft serve for everyone. And thank you Pho houses everywhere. I love you. I'll see you later tonight, please save me a table.

*I don't know if it's really steak and I TOTALLY don't care.

It's the Most Wonderful Time...

The holiday season is truly a wonderful time of year; in fact, I’d have to agree with whoever said that this is the most wonderful time of the year. There are twinkling lights and decorations everywhere, shoppers merrily bustling about and, almost more importantly, something that makes me love holiday time even more: Castagna or Candied Chestnut Gelato. This elusive and tantalizing flavor makes its appearance in our gelato cases every December, but enjoy it while you can because, unfortunately, chestnuts, like Santa himself, don't stay around for long.

This much anticipated (at least by me) seasonal flavor is light in texture but rich in flavor, and is swirled with tons of candied chestnut chunks. It’s like eating a fluffy cloud of sweet deliciousness peppered with yummy bites of velvety nuts - how could you say no? This gelato is so unique in flavor I almost always opt to eat it solo, however, with so many options why chose just one? I like to pair Chestnut with Cioccolato Scuro, but if you prefer things on the more mild side I would calm it down with the green wonder of the gelato case, Pistacchio Siciliano, or Rosemary Honey Goat’s Milk, for an all out holiday feel.

Hey Punkin', How Ya Doin'?

Nothing stirs up good warm feelings of fall like pumpkin pie. Even better, pumpkin pie a la mode. We've one upped the classic combo in our Long Neck Pumpkin gelato. It's really what pie and ice cream want to be when they grow up and find their life passion. There's thanks to go out to our superior kitchen staff that prepares this autumn treat, but also thanks to the "pumpkins" themselves.

We play favorite when it comes to pumkin varieties, and only one shines in our eyes among the rest. Long neck pumpkins are hands down the best, and what's more, they're native to our area, so you can pride yourself in knowing you're feeding your growing locavore hunger. With their elongated features, weighing in at around 12-15 lbs each, they wouldn't be able to make the trek from Chile intact anyway.

Most of ours come from Glenn and Green Meadow Farm, and our weekly produce deliveries are chock full of these peculiar looking squashes well through Thanksgiving. Not only are they delicious when transformed into pumpkin gelato, but they're the easiest to prepare. Those pesky seeds with their slime and tendency to stick to the good meaty parts that you're after only reside in the tiny little bulb at the base of the squash. That extra long neck, is pure pumpkiny goodness, ready to be cubed and roasted and turned into something grand. The skin is smooth, so there's no gnarly ridges to work around, too. Gosh, I could go on.

Start your love affair with pumpkin gelato soon, so you'll be able to get your fill before the well is all dried up. Pairing ideas: Amaretto, Pecan, Dulce de Leche, Apples & Mascarpone, Apple Cider, Bourbon Butterscotch, just to name a few of mine... or when all else won't live up to it, a simple smack of fresh whipped cream does the trick.

Creamery Pennsylvania

Many of you are unfamiliar with the workings of a real life dairy. Yes, Capogiro is a real live dairy. We source our own milk from an Amish farm, and we create our gelato and sorbetto with our own hands! Shocking, I know. We never outsource our gelato to some other dairy. We have purchased all the stuff necessary and have jumped through all the hoops to make the best product we know how to do. Why? Cuz we just don't trust anyone to do it "to our standards". We will manage our own standards, thank you very much. The result is that we know our farmers, we test the milk ourselves to make sure there are no antibiotics or growth hormones, and you can taste the difference. That difference is the freshest milk from cows grazing on grass in nearby Lancaster. The freshest fruit not grown with pesticides and other chemicals that is allowed to vine ripen. We can establish relationships with actual people, imagine that?!? I have visited these farms, pet the cows and have chased a little Amish 3 year old around the barn. I have asked for items to be grown from other farmers and BAM! the herb is planted just for me! Control!!!!

I know, being a control freak is not always the best thing, but you decide. Would you rather eat something that someone says is made to their "standards" in a far away place, they have never seen? A place that makes other products "to their standards" for many companies? Or, better yet, would you rather eat something that is grown and raised by farmers, who use the land like they always have for generations by natural standards. Farmers who refuse to go mass? Then the farmer's work is then used by people who love what they do and won't settle to just sit on the sideline, but like to roll up their sleeves and get to work? Wow. Talk about going on and on. Had to. Necessity.

Dan and I had to go to Creamery Pennsylvania a few weeks ago to take a test about milk testing. I got 2 wrong and Dan got 4 wrong. Sorry Dan. I would not have mentioned it, if you had not asked me to not torture you about it. I cannot mention nachos around you, so this had to be done. You know what I am talking about. Anywho, Creamery is everything you think it is. The Department of Agriculture is next to the 4H show grounds. There was a guy riding a tractor with no shirt on! Pinch me.