food & drink

Before opening CAJÚ gelato on Rera Palau in the Born, Argentine Pablo Marín spent 15 years developing products for multinational food companies. He’d stopped drinking cow’s milk for personal reasons, and devoted about a year and a half to courses, research and testing his own ice cream recipes. Milk, cream and egg are absent from every batch.

“Basically we cook ice cream,” says Marín, who replaces the water, fat and protein in milk with plant ingredients including cocoa butter, deodorized coconut fat, olive oil and nuts. He works with natural products and fresh local fruit, without industrial mixes; among his ingredients are coconut pulp from Sri Lanka, Italian nuts and local strawberries.

The changing selection has included pears in wine, pumpkin with coffee and olive oil with rosemary, with creamy gelatos and sorbets sharing the counter. Watermelon and mint, chocolate with lemon, apple-cinnamon with vanilla and sweet corn with coconut have appeared alongside salted peanut, pistachio and gianduia. Customers have also singled out Sicilian pistachio and Amazonian chocolate, and the staff offer samples of the flavors.

In the open kitchen they bake the cones daily, and outside the small shop a few steps double as seats for customers eating their ice cream. Marín wants to grow the business, though he says he won’t franchise it.