This is Highly Recommend, a column dedicated to what we’re eating, drinking, and buying. Here, Lauren Corona dives into the once-elusive Italian chocolate she couldn’t get enough of as a kid.
As the child of a British mother and an Italian father, I’d often get care packages from my nonna in Italy. These would usually come at Christmas and Easter, and were packed full of sweets, jewelry, “I [heart] Cagliari” t-shirts, and Pinocchio trinkets, curiously popular in Italy to this day. But the most exciting part for my two sisters and me was the gianduiotti.
Ingot-shaped and wrapped in gold foil, these chocolates were what we’d been waiting for since the last package. Made from hazelnut paste, cocoa, and sugar, they’re pretty much solid Nutella and they’re beyond incredible. Gianduiotti felt extremely special compared to the chocolate we were used to eating: Snickers, Milky Way, the occasional Freddo. We’d tear through the care package until we found the gianduiotti and eat them so quickly that we’d end up disappointed both with our lack of chocolate and our lack of self-restraint.
Back in the ’90s, they were a rarity outside of Italy—or at least anywhere that seemed remotely accessible for our family living in a small Oxfordshire town—but thankfully that’s no longer the case. Now, you can easily find them online, in specialty stores, and occasionally even in supermarkets in North America and the U.K. Venchi Gianduia N.3 Gianduiotti are some of the best.
A short history lesson: Gianduiotti were first made back in 1852 and in Turin, which is located in the famed hazelnut-growing region of Italy, Piedmont. Venchi began producing gianduiotti in 1878, and the original recipe contained cocoa mass (the part of the cocoa bean left after cocoa butter is extracted), hazelnut paste, and sugar—no milk in sight. Today Venchi hasn’t veered too far off the original recipe with its Gianduia N.3, using cocoa mass, cocoa butter, Piedmont hazelnut paste, and raw sugar. The result is a gianduiotti that’s rich in hazelnut flavor yet still light and creamy.
Ever since my nonna introduced me to gianduiotti through her care packages, I’ve tried a lot of gianduiotti in my 35 years on this planet. A lot. And Venchi Gianduia N.3 are the ones that I keep returning to. They’re intensely hazelnutty and richly chocolate-y but aren’t excessively sweet the way that some brands can be. Plus, for me, it’s a huge bonus that they’re accidentally vegan. When I swore off animal products more than a decade ago, I was prepared to give up some faves, especially in the chocolate department. Discovering shortly afterward that a lot of gianduiotti are dairy-free was a true gift.
Some favorite childhood foods are best left in the past. I certainly won’t be eating ketchup with my pasta anytime soon. But gianduiotti, especially Venchi Gianduia N.3, still hold up. I might never experience the joy of rooting through a long-awaited package to find them—ordering them for myself online just isn’t the same—but they’re just as good as I remember. I still like to keep them special, saving them for birthdays and holidays, even if my 9-year-old self would encourage me to eat them every day.