As the northeast turns the corner towards warmer weather, coffee-clutching New Yorkers have begun trading their warming cups for ones containing iced beverages and more refreshing treats. The familiar jingle of the Mister Softee truck echoes down the block, a reaffirmation that it is suddenly, and completely acceptable, to be eating ice cream in public again. For Hallie Meyer, founder of Caffè Panna, ice-cream making is a year round endeavor. She has successfully broken ice cream’s seasonality stereotype with her creative sundaes and dangerously decadent affogati, made with some of the best Italian and local ingredients available.
Meyer, daughter of legendary restaurateur and Union Square Hospitality Group CEO Danny Meyer, is quickly finding some hits of her own with Caffè Panna’s sky-high sundaes and dreamy affogati Here, in an edited interview, Meyer goes deep on her ice cream vision.
Hallie Meyer
When and where did your love for ice cream begin?
I feel like everyone grows up loving ice cream, and I especially grew up enjoying Mister Softee in New York City (my go-to was vanilla with rainbow sprinkles). I worked at the local ice cream shop in college with my roommate, which really solidified it for me. Instead of going out, we would sling scoops and our friends would visit. I fell in love with the vibe and good energy, and I started eating it every day, getting into the local shops wherever I was. I started documenting it through an ice cream Instagram account, 2girls2cones, a few years later, and my ice cream consumption only multiplied from there!
You spent some time working at The Rome Sustainable Food Project. What was that experience like?
I grew up fortunate enough to go to Italy with my family. Our trips were a mixture of vacation and research, and I hadn’t been back since I was a child. Years later, I returned to Italy, where I worked at the American Academy in Rome. Alice Waters started the kitchen there, and we’d cook gorgeous meals for the fellows and people cycling in and out of the Academy. It was a teaching kitchen, and we would make at least one pasta dish every day, among other dishes, that was based in some sort of Roman tradition. After my shifts there, I completely fell in love with the café/bar/gelateria culture and how it fit into people’s days, and knew I wanted to do something similar when I returned home to the U.S.
Otaleg is my favorite gelateria in Rome! What did you learn from working there?
Marco Radicioni’s gelato is the perfect mix of traditional and out of the box. It was there that I learned that the closer gelato is to coming right out of the machine, the creamier the mouth feel and smaller the ice crystals. So with that daily production model, there’s also a lot of flavor flexibility. Additionally, Italian cooking is driven by what is fresh, which inspires me to cook and create based on availability and seasonality. Lastly, I learned that if I simply applied certain careful techniques to a set of ingredients and flavors that work together, the final ice cream product will always be great.
Caffè Panna Sundae
How did you come up with the name Caffè Panna?
Aside from my obsession with it, I loved that panna was offered for free with gelato in Italy, and wanted to bring that back with me. When I was in Italy, I’d go around tasting all of the panna at all of the gelaterie in search of my favorite one, and always ordered extra on top and on the side. I quickly adopted the nickname tripla panna, or “triple cream.” It just made sense!
When did you open Caffè Panna?
In the spring of 2018 I started selling ice cream on Mondays at a local café in the South Bronx. I was making it in my parent’s kitchen every night, just to accumulate enough to sell for that one day per week. I was completing a year of Americorp service teaching 3rd, 4th and 5th graders, so I’d scoop during my lunch break, after school, and share on Instagram what the next week’s menu was going to be.
What inspires your ice cream flavors?
The flavors I’ve had in Italy, the ingredients that are available to me, unexpected combinations, and nostalgia!
What is your philosophy when it comes to ingredients?
I source Italian ingredients like nuts, olive oil, nut pastes, jam, and Trapani salt from Italy through Gustiamo. I am frequently inspired by what they have in stock and love pairing traditional Italian ingredients with unexpected American ones. A great example is a sundae we just did with Frutti di Bosco ice cream, house-made fruity pebble bark, strawberry panna, Frutti di Bosco drizzle and graham crackers. There are a lot of local makers that have a ton of heart and soul that I get excited about, so I’ll feature them in a fun flavor too. I am also not shy about my use of Oreos!
Let’s talk about affogato. How did it end up on the menu?
Coffee and ice cream are two of my favorite things. The way that an espresso shot tames the sweetness of ice cream and the way that the ice cream tastes more like ice cream when the espresso drowns it. It sings through any bitterness. Salt goes really nicely with coffee, and all of our ice cream actually contains Trapani sea salt. I started experimenting with affogato right when we opened, and have since been offering a classic with our vanilla ice cream, a chocolate and coffee one, and then played a little further, creating our Affogato Sundae. You get texture, flavor and the espresso allows us to bring in the component of temperature. We tend to favor flavors that are nutty, chocolaty, or contain cookies as they pair the best with coffee. We use Joe Coffee in our ice cream and Nespresso for our espresso shots.
Caffè Panna Affogati
What are the dos and don’ts of affogato?
There are no rules! I like to say relax and have it your way. You can’t go wrong with the combination of ice cream and coffee, but in an affogato, espresso, with a rich crema, is going to be better than black coffee. Also, fruity flavors won’t pair quite as well as nutty and cookie flavors.
What is your favorite sundae?
That’s a really tough one! I just experimented with doing a Cremolata, which is similar to a Sicilian granita but with smaller ice crystals. I called it Cremolata al Caffè, a frozen affogato with whipped, frozen, sweet espresso, panna and shaved chocolate on top. My favorite Affogato Sundae is probably the Almond Joyish Affogato, with salted coconut ice cream, house-made Oreo brittle, dark chocolate sorbet, Amano chocolate, toasted almonds, toasted coconut, sour cherries, panna and topped with espresso.
What is your go-to gelato order in Italy?
Fior di Latte with whatever fruit sorbet stands out, and tripla panna (on the bottom of the cone, the top of the cone, and on the side)!
How can we buy your ice cream?
In addition to buying our ice cream at our shop, we assemble a limited number of packs each week that we ship nationwide. We just launched a “Chef’s Choice” pack containing an array of flavors that we’ve produced in NYC that specific week. Since the pandemic, we got into doing some wholesale for restaurants and Butterfield Market on the Upper East Side.
Assorted pints
Do you have any exciting projects in the works?
I’m very excited to continue Trattoria Panna, our fun, casual, monthly pop-up where we turn Caffè Panna into a pasta and antipasti experience with cocktails and ice cream (of course)! There’s nothing I love more than pasta and ice cream. They’re both blank canvases that allow you to apply a small set of techniques to achieve really excellent results using very few ingredients. The way you treat guanciale is way more important than what else you’re adding to the dish. They’re lovable, accessible comfort foods. People are looking for reasons to come together outside, order from a window and sit on a nice corner. I’m just happy that we can offer that. We’re also in the process of reconstructing our space, turning what used to be a fancy ice cream cafe into a still very beautiful, see-in ice cream production factory with outdoor seating.