We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alessandro Restelli a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alessandro, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So, what do you think about family businesses? Would you want your children or other family members to one day join your business?

We created the idea of Ecco un Poco when we decided that we wanted to get married and start a new family, we used to have a long distance relationship so having something that was a little bit of both of us and that helped us stay together was incredibly motivating. We moved from Italy to Los Angeles to open our gelato shop, leaving family and friends behind, just the two of us, and although challenging we’re really happy with what we’ve created here. We’ve met so many incredible people that have opened their arms to us, and having our Gelateria on Third Street in this little pocket from Beverly Grove, it’s like being in a small town where everybody knows everybody and that’s exactly the feeling we wanted to preserve. Having a “mom and pop” shop was always one of our dreams, and it’s great to see it so well received, hopefully in the future we will make our own family bigger, we can’t wait to see our own children inside the shop, trying all the gelato and just enjoying the magical experience that is cooking for others.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I, Alessandro, come from a very different background, I always had the classic office job, but after I met Alejandra, my wife who is a pastry chef, I got a lot into food, we both trained under Vetulio Bondi, a gelato maestro, in Florence to learn how to make gelato the traditional way, with no shortcuts, using only quality ingredients and old techniques. There’s a whole lot of science and ability behind making gelato the right way, the traditional Italian way, we felt that Los Angeles was missing that. LA it’s a city where you can find any cuisine from the world, no matter how peculiar, but true gelato is hard to find, we wanted to change that, we wanted to deliver a true Italian gelato experience, we even import ingredients like Bronte Pistachio and Piedmont Hazelnut from Italy because we want to replicate the exact same taste as the gelato you had while vacationing in Italy last summer. Its all about the experience and being true to our country.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

A quality product. Having a quality product gave us a strong recognition, we always wanted to focus on the quality of the gelato, we recognised that maybe not everybody will get it at the beginning but we were pleasantly surprise that people will recognise the differences between gelato and ice cream, that they’ll have ideas on how to find a good gelato (color, texture, freshness, etc.). We are proud of our product and we can get behind it with no doubts, its important that you trust it.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

Our very own old customers, it’s always nice to hear someone new at the store saying they got out Gelateria recommended from a friend, specially if it’s an Italian friend, because we know Italians can be picky about food! Word from mouth its the biggest thing that can happen to a small business like ours, we rely heavily on it, and we try that everybody has a good experience coming to the shop, we certainly feel the pressure when someone says they heard good thing about the place as we want to recreate the same experience for new clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.eccounpoco.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eccounpoco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eccounpoco/
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ecco-un-poco-natural-italian-gelato-los-angeles
• Google: https://g.page/eccounpoco?gm

Image Credits
Alessandro Restelli – Ecco un Poco