Cajú gelato
By Michael Mueller
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 finally 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 entirely plant-based ingredients including cocoa butter, coconut fat, olive oil and nuts. He works with natural products and fresh local fruit, and eschews industrial mixes; among the ingredients he uses are coconut pulp imported from Sri Lanka, Italian nuts and local strawberries.
The changing selection of flavors has included pears in wine, pumpkin with coffee, and olive oil with rosemary, with creamy gelatos and sorbets also finding a spot on 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 (chocolate with hazelnut). If you can find it, grab some Sicilian pistachio or Amazonian chocolate; the staff will be happy to offer up samples.
Out of the open kitchen they bake the cones daily, and outside the small shop there are a few steps that double as seats for customers eating ice cream. Marín wants to grow the business, though he says he will never franchise.