Stephanie Tucci Wins the Ontario Gelato Festival Challenge

The Gelato Festival World Masters, run with partners Carpigiani and Sigep – Italian Exhibition Group, made the second North American stop of 2025 in Mississauga, Ontario, on 20 February. Ten gelato chefs competed at an event hosted by a local Carpigiani distributor, and three of them go through to the North American Semifinals.

The Ontario winners

• First place: Stephanie Tucci of By Chefanie, Barrie (ON), with “Mio Nonno”, a mascarpone gelato with fig vermouth caramel and a crumble of cantucci, the classic Tuscan biscuit.
• Second place: Onur Ylmaz of Ice Creamonology, Toronto (ON), with “Mastic & Passion”, a mastic-base gelato with homemade honeycomb and fresh passion fruit.
• Third place: Parry Sohi of Nani’s gelato, Mississauga (ON), with “Diavola”, a gelato infused with diavola pizza flavours, topped with candied prosciutto and pecorino romano.

The qualifiers will take part in the North American Semifinals scheduled for 2025.

Judging and participants

Entries were marked on flavour, structure, creativity and presentation, covering ingredient choice, recipe craftsmanship and visual impact. The jury was:

• Gianluca Ruggieri, private chef
• Jeremy Day, flavour specialist and bartender
• Luca Vitali, chef and owner of Casa Toscana
• Alessandro Buccianti, chef and owner of Punto Gelato

The other participants were:

• Lara El Alam, Divino, Georgetown (ON): “Molassini”
• Kate Cram, Cold Front Gelato, Nanaimo (BC): “Buttermilk gelato”
• Gisella Zomparelli Chung, Gelato North, Toronto (ON): “Dubai Chocolate”
• Daniela Zomparelli, Lola’s Gelato, Toronto (ON): “Mangonada”
• Lois Kim, Spoonful of Futura Granita + Gelato, Toronto (ON): “Hummus & Breadsticks”
• Salvatore Guarna, I Love Gelato, Burlington (ON): “Meravigghia”
• Sevan Kakajan, G for Gelato, Toronto (ON): “Pistacchio”

About the Gelato Festival World Masters

The championship began in Florence in 2010 and was inspired by the first documented gelato recipe, created by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti in 1559. It grew from a local contest into a tour across Italy, then Europe, and from 2017 into the United States. It went global with the Gelato Festival World Masters 2021 edition, which finished in December 2021 with a win for Adam Fazekas of Budapest and a record 3,500 gelato artisans judged by international juries.

What this means for gelato makers in Australia

Competitions like this show how far a well-balanced recipe, good technique and a confident story can take a gelato maker. If you are building your own flavour range, the right artisan gelato machines and a solid grounding from Carpigiani Gelato University are the place to start, and Majors Group can help with both in Australia. Our team can also talk you through Rubicone ingredients for your next signature flavour.

Source: Carpigiani news. Rewritten for Australia by Majors Group.