Monte Pelmo

The Jordaan's 1957 family gelateria where the queue is longer than the shop and nobody minds.

Monte Pelmo started in 1957 as a snack bar on the 2e Laurierdwarsstraat, where Riek Cornelisse cooked spaghetti for Italian guest workers and quietly knew more about ice than anyone in the room, having worked in an Italian ijssalon during the war. The family switched to gelato, moved to this Jordaan corner in 1966, and never left. On a sunny day you spot the queue before you spot the shop, which is roughly the size of a hallway with a freezer. Kids come for the blue smurfenijs, a house invention that has ruined generations of white shirts. Adults come for pistachio and hazelnut that regularly get Monte Pelmo voted the best scoop in the centre, and for the fact that the same family still runs it. Daytime and early evening counter only, no dinner, no tables worth mentioning. The line moves fast. Trust it.

There is a second serving window via the passage on the Anjeliersstraat side; on hot evenings it halves the wait. Open until 22:00, so go after dinner.