Gelatiamo
1400 Third Ave, 467-9563
Mon-Thurs 7 am-6 pm, Fri 7 am-8 pm, Sat 11 am-8 pm.

Dolce Vita
2123 Queen Anne Ave N, 284-3460
Mon-Wed 11:30 am-9 pm, Thurs-Sat 11 am-11 pm, Sun 11:30 am-10 pm.

Why gelato? Is there something wrong with American ice cream? I guess in ice cream as well as fashion (not including Versace), the Italian version promises something a little sleeker, a little classier than what we make here. Gelato's actually a little hard to define: Its texture should be smooth, but depending on who you ask it should be either velvety-firm or silken and light. (I'm in the latter, taffeta camp myself.) And although texture is important to me, I tend to prioritize those gelati (and ice creams, and sorbets for that matter) according to unmitigated flavor, a whiz-bang-pow! of nuts or chocolate or fruit, whatever the flavor happens to be. Because gelato is typically made with less fat and less air than American ice creams, it promises to deliver that undiluted flavor.

Last week I went on a gelato safari to see if any of Seattle's gelaterias were up to snuff, and also in the wild hope that their lighter formulation would prevent the bane of my dessert existence: ice cream bellyache. I don't know what causes it, the dairy, the sugar, or the pleasure, but I can't eat more than a couple of spoons of ice cream without digestive rebellion.

At Dolce Vita on Queen Anne, I waded my way to the counter through a swarm of small, very excited redheads. I was excited too, about endless samples. If you're like me, you sample your favorite flavors, and then screw it up by ordering something else, just to taste as much as possible. I loved my tiny spoonfuls of lemon and minted lime "mojito" sorbetti; they were each as bright and airy as daylight. When I finally committed to a homemade Neapolitan--a scoop apiece of chocolate, vanilla, and amarena cherry gelati--I was a little let down. The boozy cherries were great, everything that maraschinos aspire to be, but the chocolate was rather milquetoast and oddly chewy, and frankly it seemed a little wimpy next to the cherries. None of this affected my redheaded companions: As I left, two were merrily playing in the bucket of used sample spoons.

I moved on to Gelatiamo, the slickest of Seattle's gelato shops (small, two flavors, $2.75). Even its display case seems to have turned up the voltage: The gelati and sorbetti come in the slightly jarring palette of the restored Sistine Chapel ceiling. The colors made me nervous, but a sample of passion-fruit sorbetto proved distinctly (and tartly) passion-fruity, with an uncannily silken texture. Mango sorbetto pulled the same trick, pure chiffon on the tongue but with intense mango realism, right down to a slight tannic pucker. Gelatiamo's smoothness doesn't always work. Sometimes it plays like a too-slick sharkskin suit: The base of my chocolate-chip stracciatelli tasted not like vanilla, but distinctly white and oversweet. The lemon sorbetto had lovely spun sugar texture, but its soft-focused flavor had no citrus vim.

On I went to Bottega Italiana, a semi-mod little space in the Market. Its freezer case is filled with gelati arranged in soft bosomy mounds (small, two flavors, $2.75). Two flirty guys came in and made the counterwoman pronounce "stracciatelli" three times over. And why shouldn't they? She said it nicely. Bottega is earthier than its gelato compatriots: A sample of the greenish-gray pistachio gelato suggests that colorings aren't in use here, nor are they necessary, as it has the toasty smooth intensity of freshly ground nuts. Plum-toned frutti di bosco sorbet, made with blue- and other berries, still bears flecks of berry skin. It lacks Gelatiamo's mind-bending smoothness, but in the end I prefer its dense berry flavor. And here, at last, the shiny chocolate gelato was unapologetically brown-black in both color and taste. As if that weren't enough, there was a stack of new fashion magazines for me to read while I slurped tiny shovelfuls of gelato.

I don't know who makes the most authentic gelati in Seattle, but I've found my favorite. Too bad that my gelato afternoon still left me with a crippling bellyache. I guess my guts aren't made for ice cream, even Italianate.