A Pennsylvania gelato master takes on the best in Italy

When Kim Zanni decided to make a career 180 and craft gelato from scratch, she didn’t keep it simple or practical.

She aimed for masterpieces.

Pistachios, for example, can be purchased anywhere. But Zanni, 46, skipped over California and went to Bronte, in Sicily, to source pistachios grown on the slopes of Mount Etna.

Zanni said her devotion to gelato hasn’t made life easier, but it tastes delicious.

“Do you know how hard it is to make your own nut milk?” she said recently in Gelato di Babbo, her small batch shop in Dauphin County. “I just want to know that my work is appreciated.”

Last month, Zanni became the first American to compete against 34 master chefs at a festival dedicated to the dessert in Calabria, Italy.

The trip to Italy began with a glowing review of her gelato on Google that she said caught the attention of the festival’s organizers. “After traveling to Italy, my wife and I have searched throughout the entire country trying to find the best stateside gelato,” the reviewer wrote. Nothing has even come close to the quality and taste of Gelato Di Babbo. This is the Gelato that even Italy can’t touch.”

Zanni brought her own equipment to Italy to make nut milk and thought she had European standard electricity figured out until she saw smoke.

“I smell burning. Do you smell burning?” she asked a helper in the kitchen.

Despite the setbacks and language barriers, Zanni placed second in an Iron Chef-style competition where she had to use a local fruit; fourth in a technical category she’s sure she would have placed higher in if she spoke Italian; and sixth in a popular vote based on how many cups were sold at the festival. That was a vegan gelato, she said, and not very common in Italy.

“I was proud that people bought it,” she said. “People thanked me for having a vegan option.”

When asked what made her decide to go into competitions, Zanni paused at the gelato machine and smiled.

“Well, my ego I guess,” she said.

Zanni isn’t sure she’ll return to the competition but said she’d like to learn a little more Italian beforehand, to explain her process better.

“Or I’ll hire a translator,” she said.

After a career in video production, Zanni made her first batches of gelato in a home kitchen, having tasted her fair share on trips to Italy with her ex-husband. In 2007, she began packaging her gelato into a pedal cart — with a freezer — to sell on the streets of Lititz, where she grew up, in Lancaster County.

Things escalated and, after persuading some grocers to carry her gelato, Zanni’s wares wound up in Giant and Whole Foods stores across the country. Ramping up the volume, Zanni said, was stressful and, at times, the process felt out of her control, in opposition to her standards.

“The bottom line is I ran into cash flow issues and it just got too big,” she said.

Zanni took a brief respite from the gelato world during the COVID-19 pandemic but that didn’t last long. In 2020, she opened up her shop on a side street in Hummelstown, between Harrisburg and Hershey. It’s a small shop with limited hours where Zanni still makes everything from scratch.

“It’s basically me, two pots, and this machine,” she said.

Pistachio is one of Zanni’s best-selling flavors, but she thinks chocolate chip caramel sea salt is her best overall. When asked if she’s had great-tasting gelato anywhere else in the United States she simply said “no.”

“I have people coming in from out of state,” she said. “I had a woman fly in from Chicago and pick up 12 pints.”