Sebastian Joe's - Pavarotti

Pavarotti - Caramel, Banana and Vanilla Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips

Today, I try a new brand!  My sister in south Minneapolis has been raving about Sebastian Joe's ice cream for years.  They don't sell pre-packaged pints in local grocery stores so I resisted adding them to my list of ice creams to review.  Then one day, I tagged along for my nephew's swimming lessons and there were biographies of swim coaches on the wall with a field for 'favorite ice cream' and half of the coaches listed Sebastian Joe's.  Figuring I was missing out, I picked up a pint of their two most famous flavors.  This first flavor is called Pavarotti -- it has a banana caramel vanilla base with chocolate chips.  Should be fun.

Sebastian Joe's has been in southwest Minneapolis for over thirty years.  I found this really cool scoop shop history in a local neighborhood newspaper website.  It was started by three brothers:  Michael, Todd and Tim Pellizzo.  They grew up in the Twin Cities listening to stories of their grandfather Sebastiano selling gelato as a boy in the small town of Sondrio in northern Italy.  So, when the three decided to open up their own shop, they named it Sebastian Joe's after their grandfather.  Why is their banana ice cream called Pavarotti?  The flavor page mentions that they sent the ice cream to the famous tenor when he was on tour singing in Minneapolis and that he loved the ice cream and asked for more.  In an interview in that scoop shop history above, the brothers mentioned that they sent him the ice cream but they never found out if he ate (they suspect not because singers don't usually eat before they sing), but the story is fun and customers really like the name so it stuck.

Let's dig in!  When I opened the carton, my first reaction was that this looked like cookie dough!  The banana-caramel-vanilla base has the same color as cookie dough and it the way it is hand-packed into the container makes it looks super thick.  Digging in, the ice cream is indeed super thick!  There is very little air churned into this, yet it stays quite creamy.  The first thing I notice when digging in is the strong and delicious banana flavor.  In previous reviews, I have written about the two types of banana flavor that I tend to encounter: an earthy banana-bread banana and a sweet and bright banana-cream-pie banana.  This is more of a banana-bread banana but it is a strong banana than most banana breads.  You can taste a little bit of the caramel in the base -- if you look carefully, you can even see it as it is not fully homogenous.  It blends quite well and adds to the earthiness of the banana.  The chocolate chips are generously distributed and are quite good.  Each chip is a fairly sizeable chunk of chocolate and delivers quite a bit of chocolate flavor.  The ice cream stayed thick all the way to the bottom of the pint.  This is one of those ice creams that would take a long time to melt.

I really liked this pint of ice cream.  The super-thick texture really makes me feel like I'm getting my money's worth.  I liked this banana-caramel blend and the chips were very thick and chocolatey.  If you are ever at Sebastian Joe's in Minneapolis -- and you like banana -- this is one to try.