Best of New York 2010 • Eating

• 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.

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