Nani's Gelato — Restaurant in Markham

I came to the Markham location 3-4 times a week for several months and still go twice a month. They recognize me and my family at this point! They are open until 11pm so great for a late night dessert.

Customer Service: Every single time I go, staff is friendly and efficient. Payment is easy and convenient - recipts can be emailed to you. You can sample before you buy.

Here are 2 examples of awesome customer service: Once, my little guy didn't like what he ordered, and they happily replaced it for him. Another time, I accidentally received the wrong size cup (the difference between kiddie and adult small is almost imperceptible) and they offered to refund me, however, I opted for a bit more gelato! They were so kind to give me a another full serving!

Quality: I am a bit of a gelato snob (after you have gelato in Italy, I think this happens to everyone, right???), however, gelato quality is on point, creamy, saturated with flavour and most importantly not too sweet!

Selection: Flavours rotate every 2 weeks (sign up for their e-newsletter to find out the next rotation of flavours!), but they do keep a few flavours on the menu always, including one nut-fee, one vegan, etc. They also offer soft-serve gelato which isn’t common to see because of the logistical difficulties of offering it! And, you can take pints home. There's always something for everyone!

Sizes: You can buy scoops (and sample from those flavours) or pints (cannot sample unless the flavour is also on offer as a scoop). Small cup size can have two flavours mounded high, and bigger one can have 3 flavours, also mounded high. Kiddie cups are only slightly smaller than adults' small size cup, but they serve the gelato level to the height of the cup, which cuts down the actual serving size for little ones and sugar-conscious or calorie-minded.

Prices: On par with luxury handmade, fresh gelato.

A small cup is $5.50 and gives 2 flavours with generous (mounded) portions. A bigger cup gives 3 flavours for $8.99.

Cones are $6.95 (for 2 flavours of gelato) and $9.99 (3 flavour of gelato).

Soft serve is either single flavour or twist, $5.50 for the cup size or $6.99 for the cone size.

Cookie sandwich is $6.50 for half or $8.99 for full.

Gelato milkshake is $6.99.

Pints are $10.99, so more than Häagen-Dazs, but the two products aren't really comparable, IMHO.

Recommendations: My favourite so far is the pairing brown butter pecan (like a butter tart that doesn't skimp on candied pecans!) AND salted dark chocolate with chocolate chips. The former isn't too sweet but, and the latter cuts that sweetness anyway. The sweetness and texture of the candied pecans contrasts nicely with the salted dark chocolate and chocolate chips.

I also really enjoyed the Indian Chai (real saffron, a bit on a sweet side), the saffron cardamom kulfi (yay!!! the saffron actually comes through as the strongest flavour!), pistachio and salted caramel (on the sweeter side because of the caramel, so would also pair well with the salted dark chocolate chocolate chip). The hazelnut rocher is lovely and would pair perfectly with espresso (a robust strong coffee flavour). My family also enjoyed the Oreo (vegan) which is actually hardcore Oreo and not a watered-down version (commonly called cookies and cream!), the (Thai-imported version of) Ovaltine (if you haven't tried Ovaltine, this tastes like Malteasers) and the Biscoff flavour. The latest ones we really enjoyed were the tiramisu-nutella, spicy chocolate, giandul, Vietnamese coffee and mango saffron cheesecake (real saffron comes through strongly, and i loved the delightful gluten fee or crumbles added in.)

Fruity flavours aren’t my thing, but the limone and the plum sorbet were excellent. My son loves their raspberry sorbet (made with real Ontario raspberries!). He had recently enjoyed the grape sorbetto and double strawberry.

Overall: Worth a trip for sure.

I wish they would not play song versions with explicit lyrics. When the shop is empty (Sept 13, 6-6:30) there were 2 songs...

*Update: They brought the issue up with head office as more people shared similar feedback. They will post pictures beside the items so customers know what to expect. They also offered me a gift card. Glad to see they take customer feedback seriously. *

Pretty disappointed with our last purchase here. We’ve gotten gelato pints in the past at some of their different locations and loved it. We found the pistachio gelato in particular to be delicious with many chunks of pistachios in each bite. It’s so good that we tell everyone about it.

When we saw on their Instagram they were now offering gelato cakes, we were super excited to get it since we had such good experiences with their pints. The video they posted of their pistachio gelato cake looked heavenly, and it influenced us to order an 8” pistachio gelato cake.

When we opened the box, we were a little confused because it didn’t look like the one they posted in their video. The one we got was much shorter and had way less pistachios on top. The website described the cake to have a double layer of pistachio gelato, but this did not look double layered at all. However, the one in their post seemed double layered as it looked a lot taller (double the height of ours), which confused us even further. Our cake also only had bigger pieces of pistachios around the perimeter of the cake and like a dusting of ground pistachios in the middle. The cake in the post had big pieces of pistachios all around the sides of the cake. Our cake’s gelato also seemed to have less pistachios than what we’ve had in their pints. We double checked that we ordered the right thing, and we did. We even reached out to their instagram page to make sure we got the right cake and expressed our confusion/disappointment.

Their response/lack of response really left us with a negative experience. They basically said we did receive the right cake - it is double layered, but we can’t see the two layers because they’re blended into one. They said the recipe is made by using weight, but perhaps they could add more pistachios. They do put a lot of effort and heart into. They said they were sorry our cake didn’t look like the professional shots and offered us some complementary scoops of gelato.

We said we appreciate the effort and heart they put into their products, especially since we were past customers with great experiences. However, many people heavily rely on social media these days to know what to order, so it will only cause further customer dissatisfaction if you post something you don’t actually offer. The cake shouldn’t be advertised like that if that’s not what the customer will receive. We asked what cake on their site we needed to order to get the one in their post. The one in their post looked like a 6” and we ordered the 8”, so we were expecting it to look the same but wider.

We didn’t end up getting a response after that, so it left a bad taste in our mouths.

Three stars because the flavours are great, but the customer service is not. Stick...

You know what sucks? Living exactly 35 mins away from 4 different Nani's Gelato locations and none of them have the same menu each week. I came to this location on the first day of a new flavour drop because their IG advertised 2 flavours at this location that I like and that no other location had on their menu. I arrived at the store to an almost empty pint freezer and the scoop bins running low and at soft serve temperatures. This company knows that Vietnamese Coffee is one of their best sellers but this location only had one pint of it available on a Tuesday night - again the first day this flavour is supposed to be available for two weeks! The cashier offered to hand pack a second pint. When she handed it to me it was all squishy. I explained that I drove a long distance and that the pint wouldn't survive the trip home. She offered to let me switch flavours because she had already taken payment from me. When I requested another flavour that was supposed to be on their pint menu they didn't have it. They only had it available in their scoop bins but she refused to hand pack it because the owner said it had to last for other customers who wanted to buy that flavour in scoops. I took the semi melted pint of the Vietnamese coffee and I was so disappointed when I got home to find it had completely melted. I paid a premium price for a suboptimal product.

To Parry and the management team:

Creating a good product is not good enough if you can't offer a reliable customer experience. If you're actively advertising that a product is going to be available on a particular day - especially the first day of a new flavour drop - make sure its available on that day. I understand if you sell out later but this doesn't apply here. There's no point in continuing to franchise new locations if you can't get a reliable, consistent customer experience down. Perhaps do fewer menu rotations and make sure 1) all of your locations have the same core product offering in stock always and 2) make sure that all pint flavours are also available in scoops so customers can try them before spending $12 on a pint. And for the love of God, don't hand pack pints from half frozen ice cream in your scoop bins...so gross. I can't believe I paid for that. I will be taking my business to Bang Bang until you guys can get your...