The Gelato Fiasco

Absolute amazing!
Incredible gelato flavored, delicious coffee; such care and craftsmanship goes into each order. Very kind and courteous staff. A MUST for anyone w a sweet tooth!

This place is simply the best… don’t even bother with Gorgeous Gelato across the street. The Sweet Resurgum is amazing, but it’s really the Dark Chocolate Caramel Sea Salt that will knock your socks off. And I highly recommend the Butterfinger too… they don’t frequently have it, but if they do you should jump all over it. The drinking chocolate is also a great option in the cold weather (with a fresh made marshmallow). It’s a little pricey, but a superior product. Both this store and the one in Brunswick have really friendly staff that give you plenty of time to make up your mind on which flavors you’d like… they know it’s hard to pick!

This place is always on my list of places Togo when I’m in the Old Port. The quality of the gelato is great. There are so many flavored and they change them up all the time. It’s also spotless and they have games to play wile you eat. You can get as many flavor a as you want in any size and the Red Spoon Society lets you earn points towards free gelato but all you have to do is give them your name and email. No royalty card to remember! Try the pure lemon or the dark chocolate noir.

I love this place! There’s so many different flavors and they’re all really flavorful but not too sweet. My go-​to is the strawberry balsamic but I also really like the blood orange and raspberry flavors (protip: get those last two together and it’ll taste like a starburst sorbet). By far my favorite place for gelato and this includes places in NYC. I wish it were available in more locations. :(

Friendly staff that allowed us to hem & haw with our choices and to try various flavors.
Signage could use more descriptions on the more obscure flavors.
Place was spotlessly clean indoors and out.
The gelato was ok. Yep, a-​ok. It was too light in texture and had a slightly weird aftertaste but you can tell they try to use great ingredients. For me it just didn’t come together for a stellar experience. Between Europe and New Orleans, I’m set on good ice cream & gelato. Won’t be back but I wouldn’t try to deter anyone from giving them a try!

Strawberry balsamic and almond honey chessecake i superr good! The location is perfect and inside has cute little sitting area for children and adults! :) i love coming here ofte!

What can I say? I flew half way across the country, then drove 6+ hours to eat this ice cream, and it was worth the wait.
They let me try over a dozen flavors. I loved all of them.
Friendly, helpful people and super tasty ice cream. Also… the best waffle cone I’ve ever had.
Calories don’t count when they taste this good, right?
Oh…and they deliver all over the country.
I am in trouble.

The Gelato Fiasco is one of a handful of amazingly reviewed gelato and ice cream shops in the immediate area, it was hard picking just one on this visit. They have a good amount of tables inside and out and the location a block from the water makes them very convenient to get to when you want to just walk around and explore Portland. Service was friendly and the number of flavors (both common and unique) was impressive. I ended up going with a salted caramel blueberry and a mint chocolate chip. The taste, portion size, and price were all pretty good but nothing that blew me away. The gelato was softer than it should have been and didn’t take long before it was soupy (and if you know how fast I typically eat ice cream that’s saying something). Still I think they have a great shop and it’s worth checking out if you’re in the area.

Passion fruit sorbet … Insanely delish! Hazelnut chocolate — yummy! This place has some really cool flavor combinations and was buzzing so be prepared to wait a little, try some delicious flavors and enjoy!

Best ice cream/​gelato in Portland. Hands down.
All I can say is, creamy & delicious. Inexpensive. Super friendly staff. Tons of seating options. Great location.
JUST GO, OKAY?

This is my favorite ice cream in town. They have a great variety of Gelato and you can try whatever you like before making your order.
My absolute favorite is strawberry balsamic but I don’t think you can make a wrong choice at this place.
I would recommend it to every Gelato lover :)

All around an awesome place to go to on a humid summer day. Staff was very nice and quick with giving you any samples you want. And that’s a good thing, because there are so much flavors that I’ve never seen before! Just by looking at the names, I knew that I would have a hard time deciding what I wanted because not only were there flavors that I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to find anywhere else, but they all sounded delicious.
I ended up choosing Blood Orange Cardamom & Poppy Seed Amaretto while my friend chose Stracciatella & Special Hazelnut. Both of mine were fabulous, while my friend mixed her flavors hoping to get a Ferrero Rocher taste. While she didn’t exactly succeed, it did taste better combined that each did individually!
Highly recommended and will definitely return if I’m ever back in the neighborhood.

Even though my rating hasn’t changed since the last time I wrote a review, I’ve been here at least a dozen more times since and on my latest visit, I found the BEST flavor – mascarpone pistachio caramel. It was so good that upon finishing my dish of it, I actually felt genuinely upset that there wasn’t more. It was so good that the woman in line next to me ordered a large waffle cone of just that one flavor. If you’re ever in the store and they have this, you MUST try it. As usual, the staff is super friendly (I swear, it has to be a requirement for getting a job here), and it’s a policy that you can have as many samples as you want. The ordering system looks chaotic but is actually very efficient. The gelato is pricey, but they really pack it in. I find the small to be just enough for this gelato-​crazy person.
Update to the update: On a repeat visit, I tried the baci sea salt (basically Nutella with sea salt), and it is insanely good. So that’s my #2. My boyfriend prefers the pure unadulterated nuttiness of the pure hazelnut flavor.

One day last summer, I found a pint of the darkest chocolate gelato I’d ever seen in my freezer. My sister had been here the week before, and as she always does she brought a bunch of food with her. Her also being her, she brought ice cream — it’s her thing. Upon opening, spooning and savoring this incredibly decadent treat, I called her. «What is this?!» I asked/​demanded. «Oh,» she said. «You found the Gelato Fiasco.»
Indeed, I did.
Little did I know it was an actual place, too — a wonderful, dreamy gelateria with friendly scoopers urging you to try every flavor you can before settling on a dish — a ‘married’ dish, at that (just a fancy word for mixing). Aside from the most decadent, dark and delicious chocolate gelato I’ve ever seen, The Gelato Fiasco has about a million flavors of amazing. Dark Chocolate Caramel Sea Salt, Hazelnut, Sriracha Peanut, Toasted Coconut, Pistachio, Cake Batter, a sizable smattering of sorbetto and even drinking chocolate if you want to warm up… But me? I went for Sweet Resurgam — an incredible mix of roasted almond, burnt sugar, chocolate chips, caramel that is unique to this gelateria and as memorable as it gets.
When in Portland, do yourself a favor: go to The Gelato Fiasco. Don’t balk at the price (it’s not that bad), taste as much as you can and maybe even take some home with you. You’ll love yourself for it.

Pretty good. The bf and I stopped by here for dessert during our time in Maine, and the gelato here was definitely pretty good. They have a ton of different flavors and are super, super generous about what flavors you can sample and how many you can sample. They’re really chill with letting people just sample a kajillion flavors which was great. Texture of the gelato was quite smooth, though could have been creamier, but I thought the flavor and the price was quite good overall.

What a fiasco! A good one though. I had a small dish with half dark chocolate noir and half tropical lemonade. The dark chocolate noir was very rich but the tropical lemonade sorbetto helped balance it out. Very friendly staff. They have some crazy flavors. Lots of variety and portions were huge. Open late.

I think this location has fewer flavors than the Brunswick location but the quality of the gelato and the service were just as excellent. I love that you can sample every flavor you want. Also, my server stuffed so much in my cup that he needed a second cup to help contain it. Finally, you can easily combine flavors in your cup – even if you get a small.
I don’t know how often flavors get cycled through but if you ever see honey almond cheesecake TRY IT! Honorable mention: lavender rose. Next level: get them both together. And if you wanna be cool like me and my friend add a third flavor. I added toasted coconut and she added chocolate chai.

How can I NOT be a fan of a gelato shop that does special flavors for nearly EVERY holiday I could ever think of? It’s great news for them (but horrible news for me) that I’ve been getting their emails and I’ve been following their Instagram… I mean… do I really need any more reasons to drive out to Old Port?
Super bonus points for the following:
— Unlimited sampling. I’m not going to hold up the line by trying everything, but I love how they encourage you to really find a flavor you enjoy.
— Packed cups. Even though I usually go for the mini size, and even though I usually only go with two flavors max, the possibility of stuffing 3+ flavors in that tiny cup is awesome!
— Red Spoon Society. Points towards free items and a free gelato on my birthday? I’m in!
–Catering. They do parties and I’ve seen them at various food festivals, they do NOT skimp on their samples!
— FLAVORS. As I mentioned before, they’re always coming out with fun new seasonal flavors, and there’s always something new. My personal favorites include the Sweet Resurgam, Limoncello, and Maine Wild Blueberry Crisp. See their website for an insanely long list of flavors!

Really neat spot with a lot of flavors!
Espresso was not bad (I fell asleep after actually) and they have a treat size which I would recommend if you don’t eat a lot.
Service was nice but with only two people working it can slow down when there’s a rush. Also if it’s less than 16 degrees out then 16% off your total!

I’m convinced that nothing will ever be nearly as perfect at The Gelato Fiasco’s sweet resurgam flavor. Roasted almond, burnt sugar, caramel and chocolate chips combine to create the most luscious confection imaginable. And, rather than get annoyed at unbridled enthusiasm and curiosity, the staff INSIST that customers try as many flavors as they’d like.
Soooo, I did. And dear god, why is this place not in CT?
Maine wild blueberry, blood orange, caramel cookies & cream, banana stracciatella… the list goes on and on — they’ve made more than 1,500 flavors to date with 28 available daily. The Gelato Fiasco is without a doubt some of the best gelato I’ve had… and I’ve had my share.