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Guillermo Castellot

(49) looks at the display case full

and his eyes light up like a child's;

he doesn't know which one to stay with.

Up to ten varieties of chocolate, dulce de leche alone or with crisps, shortbread, tiramisu, semi-salty -such as cheesecake or Philadelphia cheese-, and the inevitable fruit: lemon, mango, raspberry... There is also organic strawberry mojito and rum with raisins

Already with the spoon in hand, he turns his head a little anxious and asks

.

Finally he smiles, he has in his hand a five-scoop ice cream.

The first time he felt this way he was five years old, maybe younger.

His maternal grandfather, Pedro Marchi, who came to Spain from the Italian municipality of Bagni di Lucca.

He traveled more than 1,600 kilometers with

.

Before he left, a friend of his handed him a napkin on which he had written a

for an ice cream sorbet.

So, he told her: "Make that ice cream and with that formula you can make other different flavors," recalls Guillermo, who knows his story by heart.

Pedro and his wife, Marcelina Ladero, opened their first ice cream parlors in Zamora and Salamanca, until they

arrived in

.

Thus, under the name of

, they set up their business in Chamberí.

At that time, the place had an ice cream machine and a counter with eight flavors;

the most requested of all was

.

Back then, they chilled ice cream with crushed ice and brine.

In

many things have changed, but others not so much.

Guillermo, who today runs the business together with his older sister Eva, says - between laughs - that the king of flavors in the

is still the same: vanilla made from egg yolk .

"Although it has had some changes in its preparation, it is one of those that has undergone the fewest modifications," he acknowledges.

There are things that they have not wanted to change: "The

of the ice cream parlor has been passed down from generation to generation until today."

The

is none other than "wanting to work, doing it well and that the things that are done are to one's own liking," he maintains.

"That way, the customer will like it," he adds convinced.

In a chain in which the links were always well oiled, he recalls that his

instilled in his mother and aunt - and later in his father - that "ice cream always had to be made the same way".

With this, he does not mean that the formula is always the same, but rather that "

must be sought , cared for, pampered, worked on and not destructured."

He thinks of the mango, but a splendid one, with great pleasure.

"If you don't know how to cut it, what you're going to do is destroy it and it won't give the necessary flavor," he explains.

Guillermo has "sucked" the

practically since he was born.

"They put me in the little chair on top of the counter," he recounts.

Growing up surrounded by ice cream could be any child's dream, but for him and his sister it has been part of their routines for as long as they can remember.

"We saw our parents who were

with his work, although in the summer they worked a lot », he comments.

Today it is they who ring the alarm clock before seven o'clock to be in the workshop they have in Alto de Extremadura, the place where the ice creams that supply the

they have, the one in Chamberí and the one in Torrelodones, are made.

The brothers have shared the work, Guillermo is responsible for the first and Eva for the second.

Only in the workshop, both can be working more than eight hours a day.

They prepare more than

a year and in summer they make up to

of ice cream per day.

But Guillermo's greatest

occurs at the end of his day, when he is sitting on the same stool he is leaning on now.

"How good is this ice cream!" He hears from the next table.

"Have you tried this one?

It is insurmountable, “replies another voice.

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