Fatamorgana Gelato - the real deal from Rome!

Americas - USA West Los Angeles
1

Exciting opening for gelato lovers - Fatamorgana, originally from Rome, opened in Studio City a couple weekends ago! They had my favorite gelato from an Italy trip a few years back, and tonight it was just as good as I remembered. Maybe that’s because of the heat wave gripping SoCal or I was in a nostalgic haze, but damn I was happy. Fwiw I haven’t been to Bulgarini (just can’t find the right time!), so I can’t offer a comparison unfortunately.

Anyhow, I went with three scoops ($6.90 for not huge scoops) - pistachio (using nuts from Bronte), white almond, and chocolate/orange sorbet. Got to taste a few others, including gianduja, which was really great and tempting too.

I appreciate that they offer both classic flavors (fior di latte, stracciatella, pistachio, hazelnut, fruit sorbettos, etc) along with some flavors that are really out there like “Chocolate Kentucky” which uses some tobacco infusion. Personally, I didn’t love the Kentucky flavor, perhaps because it did really taste of tobacco. On any given day, the manager said they offer 66 flavors, about 10 of which are chocolate-based.

It wasn’t particularly busy when I went - maybe 10 other customers. Given the sheer number of flavors, though, if it ever gets crowded with people wanting to try a lot, I could see there being quite a wait. At the same time, perhaps there’s too much other competition in the neighborhood - it’s literally a couple blocks from Salt & Straw and McConnell’s.

The website is a little bit of a mess, so here are the key details.
12021 Ventura Blvd, Studio City CA 91604 - street parking

Hours (according to Yelp):
Mon-Thurs - 12 PM - 11 PM
Fri & Sat - 12 PM - 12 AM
Sun - 10 AM - 10 AM

http://gelateriafatamorgana.com/web/index.php?ll=us

8 Likes
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This sounds great. Love myself some good ice cream or gelato in this crazy hot weather.

A bang bang bang of Fatamorgana, Salt n Straw and McConnells might bang bang bang me up for the rest of the weekend but it seems so worth it.

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Got to check this out tonight. Anything promising opening up in Studio City is a cause for excitement, given the bizarre paucity of good options…

The flavor selection is a bit overwhelming. Some seem pretty gimmicky, but I’m less confident in writing them off now that I’ve tried a few that I wouldn’t have credited with much possibility of being good.

I tried nearly 10 flavors:

Venezuelan Chocolate - decent.

Chocolate Lapsang Souchong - one of my eventual selections - the smoke was a real kick in the pants; no pretension to subtlety but very good.

Milk Cream - my second selection - possibly a mistake in retrospect. The flavor was very good but the texture was not quite smooth enough.

Goat Cheese with Mint - my sister’s first pick, this was really good. I’d normally not go for something like this but the funkiness was limited mostly to the finish, and the creaminess worked surprisingly well with the mint.

Passionfruit - my sister’s other pick. This was a gelato, not a sorbetto, but the flavor of the passionfruit still came through very well. Thankfully it wasn’t too sweet. Pretty tops.

Bronte Pistachio - I skipped trying the California Pistachio, which is their other pistachio option, as I’m pretty uninterested in the typical “roasted” pistachio flavor that our server indicated it would have, and I wanted to see how it stacked up to Bulgarini’s. Well, suffice it to say it’s a solid step above typical pistachio offerings but doesn’t reach the heights that Leo’s does. It lacks a certain purity and focus in the flavor. A bit of a shame but not really a surprise, and that’s not to say it wasn’t good - it was.

Chocolate/Hazelnut/Coffee - or something. It wasn’t bad.

Probably one or two other flavors I can’t remember.

I do want to go back and try some more of the fruit options. The blueberry looked appealing.

Pretty happy overall. There were a surprising number of people there for a bit past 10 pm, though it is Saturday…

1 Like
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Glad to hear you enjoyed it! Definitely try more of the fruit flavors - it seems like they’ve got new ones every time. Although a couple I recently tried were a bit sweet, I loved their pear sorbetto.

I also liked their Bronte pistachio, so I guess I really, really need to try Bulgarini’s! Must make time to get over to Altadena.

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Nice. There’s a new spot by us on 3rd street that’s not too bad… Ooli or some shit

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Fatamaorgana is opening up shop in Beverly Hills.

Up the street from Maude on Beverly.