Executive chef Robb Duncan, co-owner of Dolcezza (along with his wife Violeta Edelman and Dimas Rodriguez), says the company’s new Northeast facility is gearing up for a December opening.
Brrr! Good thing there will be coffee on offer.
Along with the uber-creamy frozen confection that’s long drawn ice cream fans to Dolcezza’s original Georgetown site, Stumptown Coffee Roasters caffeinated delights will be served.
The staff at the Portland, Ore. –based roaster, which opened in 1999, “live and breathe” coffee and espresso just as the Dolcezza team does gelato, Duncan says.
“They were the visionaries in this whole third-wave coffee industry, and they still are,” he adds.
Adjacent to the gelato tasting area – which can accommodate about 200 people – Dolcezza will feature a “coffee lab” where customers can order Stumptown’s coffee, take part in tastings and learn more about the roasting process.
Crates that once hauled the lemons, almonds or cherries used in gelato production will provide display space on the coffee lab side of the new Dolcezza facility, which is roughly 4,000 square feet in total. That’s a far cry from its current 300-foot space on Wisconsin Avenue NW, which will eventually close. According to published
reports, the Dolcezza team is scouting out a new retail space in Georgetown.
In the meantime, Duncan says that the gelato that will be on offer at the new facility will be as fresh as it gets. Gelato normally requires tempering to make it readily scoopable, but the ice cream that will be offered in the tasting room will be served before it’s been tempered. “It’s the nectar,” he says.
Variety lovers, take note: the flavor may also change on a near hourly basis, depending on what orders Duncan and his team are filling for the places where their gelato is sold, including Cuba Libre and the Washington Court Hotel.