Pachi, the “ice cream shop of 1,000 flavors,” founded by a Basque in Berazategui, Argentina

The history of Heladería Pachi, inaugurated in 1978 in Berazategui, one of the suburbs in Greater Buenos Aires, is one of success, bringing together quality products and the ability to surprise customers with all types of flavors.

The story of this success, and their incredible and innovative flavors, it told to us by Alejandro Gómez Blanco in an article he published in Infocielo, a news portal website for Buenos Aires province.

Our readers will not be surprised when we tell them this is a “Basque story”.  After all, it’s what we like to write, and we’ve been doing it for almost eleven years.

And so it is.  Specifically, this is the story of the work of one Basque, Pachi.  We’d probably know him better as Patxi, that fond diminutive of Francis spoken only among the Basques, but the spelling was changed to reflect Spanish orthography in order to make it easier for Spanish speakers to guess the pronunciation.

Since 1978, when this ice cream shop was founded, it has become a landmark in Buenos Aires ice cream, and, given by the comments on social media, it seems the fame has spread throughout all of Argentina.

But we don’t know much more about this imaginative and creative ice cream shop.  We’re not sure if “Pachi” got to Argentina from Basque lands, or if he’s from a Basque family that had settled in Argentina before he was born.  What we do see is that that Basque man chose a city bearing a surname that is very much from the land of his forebears, a very Basque name, to start his business.

But because of that, because of the lack of information, we can allow ourselves to imagine that this Patxi, whose surname we don’t even know, arrived in Argentina from San Sebastian, which is so well known for its artisanal ice creams that it’s become part of the local identity.

A good deal of the “blame” for this love of ice cream in the Gipuzkoan capital, perhaps all of it, may come from another artisanal ice cream shop, Arnoldo, which sells home-made ice cream from Italian recipes since the family moved to San Sebastian in 1935.

So, while we can’t tell you anything for sure, we’re sure that the people of Buenos Aires can enjoy that small pleasure that is Basque ice cream thanks to the San Sebastian tradition that a sharp-eyed pro named Patxi was able to export to the Argentine capital, along with creativity and an ability to adapt to local tastes.

As soon as we can, we’ll be on a plane to Argentina to see what if any relationship there may be between these two ice cream shops.

Infocielo -1/5/2021 – Argentina

La heladería de Berazategui con los sabores más raros: desde Fernet con Coca hasta Flyn Paff y Mate

Sobre gustos no hay nada escrito y eso lo tienen muy claro en Pachi, la heladería de Berazategui que se anima a experimentar con los sabores más exóticos que cualquiera pudiera imaginarse. Ubicada a pocos metros de la estación de Berazategui, Pachi es una de las heladerías más icónicas de la ciudad conocida como la “Capital Nacional del Vidrio”, pero también de la Zona Sur del Gran Buenos Aires.

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