Gelateria ‘Whipped Apia’ opens in Vailima

By Elizabeth Ah-Hi 04 November 2017, 12:00AM

Italy meets Samoa with the opening of ‘Whipped Apia’ in Vailima yesterday, offering mouthwatering and refreshing gelato and sorbet to the delight of the gelateria’s first customers. 

Whipped Apia is the brainchild of Chloe Fa’aiuaso who was excited to serve up some delicious desserts but also provide a relaxing hangout for the locals. 

Based in Vailima on Cross Island road, the idea of a gelateria came to Chloe in July this year while she was trying to find something to do, having moved back from London a year ago.

 “I was living in London and about a year ago when I came here on holiday and mum said to me, ‘no, you need to stay here in Samoa and spend time with the family’ and so I stayed back,” she laughs. 

“While being back here, I noticed that there was a gap in the market for places for people to go. I was trying to find things to do; like after work; where else could you go before dinner?" 

“I live up the hill and I kept driving past here and I really liked the spot, the garden in the back is beautiful and there’s just a really good vibe about this place.”

Our socialising usually takes places over food and drinks and Chloe found that the hours of those particular social hangouts were not that flexible, which is why Whipped Apia will be open seven days a week.

This will be a welcome concept for those looking for a place to debrief after church with a treat or for anyone who just wants to have a place to hang out.

 “The cafes here close at 2-3pm during the week, so I just wanted to have a place that friends and family can get casually get together and feel comfortable." 

“Already my friends are popping in and we’ve got families coming in for a relaxing setting with the beautiful garden in the back. We’re going to be open during the week from 12pm - 7pm and in the weekends from 11am -7pm.”

Gelato is an Italian ice-cream that is milk based but it doesn’t involve cream like regular ice-cream. 

Compared to ice cream, gelato has less air in it which means that, through a unique making process, the end product is a frozen dessert that has full and intense flavours and you are most likely to feel satisfied after eating smaller portions. 

And this is not bad news for those with a sweet tooth looking to cut down on those calories.

Whipped Apia promises to serve up fresh gelatos and sorbets every day and according to Chloe: “We can look forward to more flavours in the making as the young entrepreneur plans to experiment with local produce." 

 “Most of our ingredients have been brought in from Italy so they are shipped to New Zealand and then brought over to us,” she said. 

 “We have a premium product in the fact that we make our gelatos and sorbets fresh in the shop the night before and I will be making some during the day as we needed. We have eight flavours at the moment but we have up to 20 mixes that we can make, so there’s a lot of creativity involved with the process of coming up with new flavours." 

 “We’re also making sorbet and we are using local fruit so at the moment we’ve got mango, pineapple and banana. My grandmother has a garden down at Vaivase so we are looking to use the fruit from her garden such as sasalapa, starfruit and cashew nut." 

 “We are going to get this up and running and then we will look at experimenting. It’s really exciting.”

By Elizabeth Ah-Hi 04 November 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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