In the 40 minutes I spent talking to Hallie Meyer, the owner of Caffè Panna, a Gramercy Park ice-cream and coffee shop, she tried a new mango nectar from one of her vendors, completed a phone order, greeted a chef she’s collaborating with, updated her team that a broken ice-cream machine had been fixed, gave me a tour of the business’s kitchen, and made me two ice-cream specials. The first was a strawberry soft serve drizzled with olive oil. The second was the daily sundae special—a swirl of triple berry and vanilla ice cream topped with homemade berry compote, ginger streusel, candied pie crust, and raspberry panna, a lightly sweetened, freshly whipped cream typically served atop a scoop of gelato in Italy.
“I’m a little strapped for time,” says Meyer, 31. This feels like an understatement. On top of running the shop, Meyer and her husband, James Campbell, welcomed their first child seven months ago.
