Jersey City’s Bucket & Bay Gelato Co. makes its gelato using only milk from cows fed a diet of 100 percent organic grass.
“The milk is really important,” say Jen Kavlakov, “because grass-fed milk has a higher butterfat content.”
Before opening Bucket & Bay in July of last year, Jen and her husband, Boris Kavlakov, sampled 100-percent grass-fed organic milk from many farms in the area before settling on Pennsylvania’s Oasis at Bird in Hand, an Amish farmers’ cooperative.
Jen and Boris Kavlakov, owners of Bucket & Bay Gelato Co. in Jersey City
Many of Bucket and Bay’s 12 core flavors are inspired by the couple’s travels. Rose Latte, for example, takes its taste cue from the rose tea Jen sampled in China. Dark and Stormy is based on the famous Bermuda cocktail of ginger beer and Goslings Bermuda rum. In fact, Goslings rum goes into the recipe. Asian influence can be found in the Purple Sticky Rice, made with with lemongrass. Mango Smoked Cardamom sorbet makes Indian references.
For all that, Bucket & Bay’s best-selling flavor is Deep Dark Chocolate.
All the flavors are made in the open kitchen of their shop, located on the ground floor of a former grocery warehouse in what is now known as the Powerhouse Arts District. The counters, benches, bars and shelves in the airy, glass and concrete space were created by Jen’s father, Harold Warner, in his workshop in Kansas, where she grew up.
Boris, a native of Bulgaria, and Jen left corporate careers in marketing and finance to follow their dreams as an example to their two young daughters. As Jen started to experiment in her home kitchen, the girls happily sampled what Jen produced.
Jen and Boris named the shop for the bucket in which her grandfather made ice cream in his garage when she was a girl and for the couple’s love of sailing, which dovetails nicely with the shop’s downtown location on Bay Street. not far from the Hudson River waterfront. The Bucket & Bay logo includes an anchor, reproduced on the staff’s aprons. Lighting was salvaged from vintage ocean liners.
They cook down fresh fruit “to decrease the water content, remove ice crystals and extract flavors,” says Jen. The gelato bases are aged 24-to-48 hours to further deepen flavor. The gelato is slow-churned, then flash frozen at -50° F. The gelato is served at 5° F, for the smoothest, creamiest consistency.
Gelatos can be bought in single, double or triple scoops in cups or a handmade gluten-free pizzelle cone.
Bucket & Bay also offers themed samplers, like the current selection of tequila-based flavors. There are melted-cheese paninis, including some filled with gelato and jam instead of cheese, and croissantwiches filled with gelato.
Bucket & Bay gelato sandwich. Photo: Tatsuro Nishimura
The shop also sells milk, butter and cheese from the Pennsylvania co-op, pastries from nearby Choc-O-Pain bakery, coffee and tea.
bucketandbay.com
150 Bay Street
Jersey City
201-503-5588
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