• Roman’s

  243 DeKalb Ave., nr. Vanderbilt Ave., Ft. Greene; 718-622-5300

  In a city blessed with the ineluctably creamy likes of Il Laboratorio del Gelato, L’Arte del Gelato, Blue Marble, Otto, and Grom, to say nothing of Van Leeuwen, it might be a touch subversive to suggest that the best ice cream is in fact a sorbet, and that it’s often the only dessert offered at this Italian-inspired Fort Greene newcomer. But the chocolate sorbet there is like no sorbet you’ve ever had—or ice cream, for that matter. Whatever you call it, it’s lush and deeply flavored, more like a refreshingly cold ganache, a looser pot de crème, or an artisanal Fudgsicle, perhaps. The secret? It’s made with Askinosie chocolate in some sort of magical soft-serve machine inherited from the previous restaurant, Bonita, and achieves a texture somewhere between velvet and air.

From the 2010 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine