uGOgelato
Maria Liliana Biondo, Owner and Head Gelatiere at uGOgelato
Maria Liliana Biondo is the owner and head gelatiere at uGOgelato on Elm Street. She has a rich cultural heritage that has informed every decision she’s made concerning her business. From location scouting to flavor creation and the level of hospitality she offers to her guests, uGOgelato is truly an extension of Maria.
She grew up in Venezuela to a Portuguese mother and an Italian father who owned their own gelato shop. Being a child of immigrants, going to college was a high priority in her life. She studied psychology and eventually earned her Master’s degree and began working in the field. Even so, she still pulled shifts at her parents’ gelato shop simply because she loved learning the inner workings of their business, connecting with guests, and experimenting with various flavor combinations to create masterpieces of her own. She found joy in both careers, each sharing the commonality of human connection, but would eventually table her career in psychology to become an entrepreneur of her own gelato shop.
The first time Maria and her husband visited Cincinnati they quickly fell in love with the city. “The four different times that I visited Cincinnati before moving here, I always told my husband, ‘if we open a gelato shop, it has to be near Findlay Market.’ Because Findlay Market is the most European-style market we have in the city,” she says. “Growing up Italian, when you have gelato, it’s a family moment. When you go to a place, you spend the day there, you walk around and discover the city. Findlay Market is that.”
This community is a patchwork quilt of business owners who laid a foundation for other entrepreneurs to start their own businesses; a ripple of kindness that will affect generations to come. Even prior to opening uGOgelato, Maria has experienced this kindness from the community firsthand. “Cincinnati is really special to me in many ways,” she says. “We have a very good sense of community here, and we feel loved in so many ways.”
uGOgelato has been a mainstay on Elm Street for just over two years now. Their menu features a variety of rotating gelatos and sorbets as well as cannoli, semifreddo, and Urbana Cafe espresso. Maria loves experimenting with flavors, and will go to great lengths to achieve the taste and texture she’s gunning for. It’s this tenacity that landed her a gold medal at Gelato Festival World Masters in 2019, and placed her in the running for the North American finals next year.
“I was really hesitant [to compete] because I was one of the youngest chefs, but my husband was always encouraging me to go, and we ended up winning first place in Washington, D.C,” Maria says.
The flavor that landed her in next year’s North American finals was Mandorland, a gelato that highlights Sicily’s iconic flavors and is entirely vegan. Beating out the competition, a crop of only the best gelato chefs in the country, with a non-traditional gelato is an incredible feat. To achieve a base as smooth and creamy as gelato made with whole milk, Maria blended three types of Sicilian almonds—raw, roasted, and bitter—into an almond milk that was flavorful enough and fatty enough to stand up against classic gelato. The base is swirled with a blood orange glaze, flecked with dark chocolate, and spritzed with orange oil just before serving.
For Maria, competing isn’t solely about winning. There’s a lot to learn in a room full of the world’s best gelato chefs. “I get to connect with other chefs and learn about other cultures I’m passionate about,” she says. “I can just sit down and talk to people because I really enjoy learning from others. It’s a great way to connect and learn how they grow their businesses.”
Beyond her achievements at Gelato Festival World Masters, Maria has been recognized locally for her entrepreneurial spirit. Earlier this year, she won the Young Entrepreneur award at the OTR Awards. It’s clear that our community, as well as a larger global community, have eyes on Maria’s work and recognize it as not only outstanding, but worth uplifting.
Published June 2024