Nannarella

Nannarella is run by Romans making gelato the Roman way, and the difference is immediately obvious. The tubs are covered and stored in metal canisters rather than piled into the coloured mountains you see in tourist gelaterias — a sign that the product is made fresh, kept at the right temperature and not pumped full of stabilisers to hold a shape.

The flavours are few and change with what is good. Pistachio is the benchmark and it is excellent: properly nutty, savoury at the edge, not the fluorescent green sugar-bomb version. The fruit sorbets taste aggressively of the actual fruit. Ricotta and fig, when it appears, is the sleeper hit. Ask for a small size and two flavours; the portions are generous and the scoops are pressed rather than balled, so you get more than you think.

There is nowhere to sit. You queue on the pavement of Rua Nova da Piedade, order at the window, and then walk down to the Príncipe Real garden or up to a miradouro to eat it. That is part of the ritual and it works.

Honest notes: the queue is real and in summer it can be twenty minutes. Cash is smoother than card. Flavour availability is genuinely unpredictable, so do not go with your heart set on one thing. And in bad weather the whole standing-outside format loses its charm. But this is the best gelato in the city and it is not particularly close.