Pinolo Gelato

So yummy! I had the pistachio gelato and lemon sorbetto. The gelato has a smooth and creamy texture without being heavy, and the flavor captured the perfect essence of pistachio – nothing more, nothing less. The lemon was very refreshing, yet perfectly smooth and an almost creamy mouth feel – not a single detectable ice crystal! Added bonus: they have a punch card.
I’d eat this over Salt & Straw any day!

After having just finished a meal at Xico next door we couldn’t possibly make room for dessert. Hahaha. Just kidding. Of course we could.
The flavors all sound amazing, and in even a small scoop you get to choose two. I went with the pistachio and fior something (essentially sweet cream) and they were both delicious. The gelato itself is a perfectly creamy consistency, the flavors are not too sweet, and they seem to care about how they make their gelato and where the ingredients come from.
It’s a tough choice, what with Salt & Straw just a short stroll down the road, but you’ll be happy here.

Top notch spot. totally deserves the extra spot. Their gelato is spot on. hurry up and go here asap!

Whoa… OMG… Mmmmmm.
We have grown tired of the uniqueness of Salt and Straw and wanted to try a different ice cream. We saw that this place had some good review and decided to top off our Italian dinner at Burrasca’s with some Gelato.
This is the real stuff. Lots of interesting flavors of gelato and even some sorbeto’s.
All very excellent. The chocolate was my favorite and my wife’s was a chocolate and pear.
One item that would have been really nice, but was missing, was an expresso machine. We would have loved a bit of coffee with the gelato.

I would only come here if the line for Salt & Straw was too long. The gelato is beautiful but the flavor doesn’t have much impact.
I could tell the gelato was fresh, but it was incredibly bland. Every flavor had the same general taste.
The only part of my visit that really appealed to me was an employee’s accent. His ITALIAN accent, that made me happy. Way happier than the gelato.
The establishment and gelato are very aesthetically pleasing but so, so boring.
I left feeling pretty unsatisfied.

I don’t usually review anything publicly but this gelato was so good I had to! After hearing all of my friends talk about this place for the last couple of weeks I had to check it out for myself and see if it really was as good as they were saying. It was.
I took my mom and nephew here last Sunday and to be honest I haven’t seen either that happy in a long time! It brought back a lot of memories of growing up for my mom (and even for me too). As a little girl growing up on the Adriatic coast my main diet was gelato, gelato and more gelato so Pinolo is my heaven on earth in Portland.
I highly recommend the pistachio and strawberry flavors. They were spot on. Baccio is also pretty good; it was the perfect balance of hazelnut and chocolate.
I know I am going to be coming back here on a weekly basis!

The first few weeks after Pinolo opened it was basically empty, which was pretty amazing considering it was the best frozen dessert I’d had in my life. I looked down the street at Salt & Straw and shook my head. Who stands in a line for an hour to get salty ice cream with children’s cereal in it? There’s something something delicious right here that doesn’t make you feel sick afterward… Salt & Straw is for chumps.
Now things are picking up. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if posting this review is such a good idea. I want business to be good enough for them to stay open, but I don’t want the mob down the street to make me stand in line for my gelato. So, chumps, stay in your line. Pinolo is too good for you.

My first visit here was simply just meant to be. I was having dinner with my best friend and we were discussing her recent European cruise where she got to spend some time in Italy. Our nostalgia got the best of us and we started drooling at the thought of spaghetti carbonara and what else? — gelato!
I mentioned to her that I had read excellent Unilocal reviews about a new gelato spot on Division and off we went for dessert! Salt & Straw — you most definitely have some competition! I think soon enough, Pinolo Gelato will have lines wrapped around the block for authentically made gelato.
I was in awe of the setup. It’s a quaint little shop with flavors listed to the right of the entrance, places to sit on the left and beautiful lighting to display the excellent tubs of goodness. The employee (possibly owner?) was super sweet. My friend and I were able to sample flavors in order to find the right flavor to go with the highly recommended Fior di Latte (per Unilocalers).
Every single flavor I sampled (three — I wasn’t trying to be greedy or hold up the line) was magnificent! The Fior di Latte is a sweet and simple milk flavor. It’s not overpowering like the Pistachio or the Bacio (chocolate and hazelnut infusion). You really want to appreciate the flavors, so Fior di Latte offsets the other rich flavors. I HIGHLY recommend getting the Pistachio. It was my favorite flavor — dense, creamy, and tasted like real pistachios (I think I’m salivating).
You really get your money’s worth. A small is $ 3.75 and allows you to choose 2 flavors. Medium gives you 3 flavors for a dollar more, and the large let’s you indulge 4 flavors for $ 4.75.
Most certainly will be returning. I don’t need to convince you to like this place. The product will do that all on its own.

5 years on Unilocal,finally my first review after visiting this place last night. My GF typically does enough Unilocaling for the both of us (is that the proper term?!), but after trying their gelato, I need to make sure this place stays open.
The gelato was amazing and is worth mentioning in its own sentence.
Service was friendly and the line moved quickly. Never been a big fan of gelato, but this place made me a convert. Fior di Latte was perfect, creamy yet delicate. Pistachio was a close second, much deeper flavor though, as the pistachio really comes through. Tried six flavors in total, but those two were the standouts.
My baby girl can’t eat solids yet and even she was drooling. Go there… quickly…before the word gets out and the lines get a lot longer.

Where to start? I found myself driving by and remembered Andrew H’s review and decided to stop. I am very glad I did.
They are a small shop with just a few flavors of Gelato. When I walked in I was sorry to sea that they were out of the one with Italian cherries but I was able to get the Hazelnut Gelato with Pluot sorbet. They were both really good and went well together.
The Gelato was rich, smooth and creamy and I always like hazelnuts and the flavor came through really well.
The sorbet was sweet and tasted like fresh fruit. It was excellent.
I hope the shop does well. There were several people when I got there. It was just the thing on a hot summer day!

You know it’s addicting when you’re eating it like you’re going through a break-​up, but I’m not going through a break-​up, in fact I feel like I’ve started a relationship with this place. The kind where you get fat from happiness out of the kitchen.
Fior di latte. Like a bit of heaven. Light, fluffy, smooth, the perfect kind of sweet with the taste of fresh cream. It was my favorite!
If you’re having some chocolate cravings, go for the Straciatella. It’s fior di latte with chunks of amazing dark chocolate mixed in.
Pistachio. A bit more dense than the fior, still so soft and smooth. Really deep flavors, my second favorite!
I also tried some sorbets. The pluot was amazing (plum+apricot hybrid).
I grabbed a pint of fior to-​go, cause if you haven’t noticed, I’m in love with it. The guy (I believe owner?) asked me how far I had to drive and offered to flash freeze it for 10 minutes so it’d keep. How considerate and also showing pride in his product.
5 stars all the way, I’ll be back here often!

Truly exceptional! Salt & Straw is for tourists. Pinolo is for locals. Best gelato in Portland. Well so far.
The simple favors are strong. No need the add so many things. It is heaven in one simple flavor. And of course you can mix them up.
I don’t know if they do special limited time flavors. We will see.
The place is spartan and easy to miss. But I came for flavor, not décor. I think that is want they wanted too.

If, like me, you find Salt & Straw’s offerings overrated and overwrought, you may find the purity and restraint of Pinolo refreshing. A spoonful their of dense, velvety pistachio brings me so much more joy than some «chef series» monstrosity the kids are lining up for down the street. Pinolo’s mostly monochrome flavors — Hazelnut, Fiore di Latte, Peach — honor the top-​notch ingredients. And of course you can get wild and cram several flavors together. Since each flavor is so elemental, they pair well without turning into sweet mud.
The gelato is dense and creamy, but simultaneously light and clean. They have nailed Italian gelato craft, a trick few have managed in the states. Texture is swoon-​worthy, and the lightness lets the pure flavors shine.

The gelato here is top notch beautiful amazing subtle bursting with flavor Bueno beauty!
However… The place seriously smells like armpit. Not kidding. Like someone’s stinky sweaty unbathed bacteria ridden armpit.
Food service requires clean service staff. Period. I don’t care if its hippy ass portland. Take a shower. Put some frickin tea tree oil on or Toms of Main or whatever. Just please, for the love of God, don’t mingle your pits with my pistachio!

Salt & Straw was too long of a line up and was recommended by a guy at at Italian food truck Artigiano. I was hot and bothered from waiting for food from Pok Pok’s and ended up here.
SO GOOD! perhaps the best Gelato I have had in a long long time! I had the hazelnut and Pistachio and it was so good. SO GOOD — I drool thinking about it. The girl behind the counter was nice as she served us. The space is a great with seating and clean, simple and modern.

Didn’t feel like waiting for Salt & Straw, so we ended up here, and I can definitely say that I am much happier! Not that I don’t like Salt & Straw, it’s just waiting for 45 minutes in line for ice cream puts me in a very cranky mood.
Even though they have fewer flavors, and most of them non-​crazy, I do enjoy the traditional ones like chocolate and sweet cream, or their very refreshing sorbetto. Overall I prefer gelato because the texture is smoother.
Great flavors, good service, and less wait. No more cranky moods!

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting the gelato to be THAT good. Oh, but it ended up being THAT good! 5 stars won’t do it justice. His raspberry gelato tastes like a fresh picked summer raspberry from my backyard. I literally had warm, pleasant flash backs of childhood summertime while sampling it. Pair it with the lemon gelato & you’ve got a perfect marriage of the freshest gelato in Portland. It also helps that the owner is SO nice & from Italy with a lovely Italian accent! Am I still in pdx?!

Hands down the best gelato I’ve ever had. The shop is cute and very clean. The server was exceptionally kind and didn’t make us feel rushed or bad for wanting to try more than a flavor or two. (I think between the both of us we tried 8) it was really hard to pick which combo to get because they were all so splendid! I ended up having the pistachio with fior de latte which was just what I wanted. I already have in mind for next time to try the lemon and strawberry together.
Only thing I would change about this place is music! I wish they were playing music. It was so quiet in there and it would be nice to have some background noise. Other than that this is a place you should definitely stop in and try some simple decadent flavors straight out of Italy.

Oh wow! I have had some good ice cream and gelato in this town but I can honestly say never had I had something as good as what I experienced at Pinolo Gelato.
Rich, creamy, dense, clean tasting and just pure goodness on a little plastic spoon. With a small selection of flavors, the folks at Pinolo have crafted some wonderful treats for the people of PDX. I enjoyed a small with two flavors and I got amarena, which was a vanilla with dark sour cherries that just was mildly sweet with just the right amount of tartness to it and it shared the cup with one of the best dark chocolates that I’ve had in a long time. It was dark chocolate mousse if it were frozen. Creamy, creamy, creamy. It was lush with very little sweetness to it and it was simply perfect. The two flavors were terrific together and that chocolate would have worked well with the pistachio or the hazelnut gelato as well.
The space has a very clean design as well and the walls were screaming for some tasteful art or photography. It is a place I will return to shortly, especially since I don’t live that far from them.
Go be sinful here. Enjoy.

We are lovers of gelato and have sampled gelato all over Italy. Soft opening right now so had only 6 or so flavors and we tried almost all of them. A+ smoothness and flavor. True authentic Italian gelato. I heard one of the staff speaking Italian with another customer.
They talked about adding specialty drinks later and they have room for many more flavors. Only downside was no Stracciatella but the Fior di Latte which is the base of Stracciatella was perfect so with some high quality chocolate shavings it will be wonderful. We did have a cup of the chocolate and it was super smooth with deep dark flavor and no graininess which we have found at some places before.