La Fornace in Cuenca
Pizza and the Best Chocolate Ice Cream

La Fornace (an Italian name) is a small pizza and ice cream chain in Cuenca. One of the locations is a full menu Italian restaurant, while the other three are strictly pizza, lasagna and ice cream.

Pizza

A La Fornace pizza

If you've ever eaten pizza in Ecuador, you know it doesn't compare to what we're used to back home.

Probably because they don't use tomato sauce on their pies. La Fornace is no exception.

Their prices are in line with the other pizza places in Cuenca, and a lot cheaper than the North American chains present here (Pizza Hut and Papa John's, which do use tomato sauce).

Ice Cream

The best chocolate ice cream

La Fornace keeps up with the Italian theme by calling itself a gelateria, which is Italian for an ice cream shop, instead of an heladería (Spanish for the same term).

Ice cream is so important to this chain that they put the ice cream right in the entrance to their restaurants, to get that walk-by traffic that doesn't want pizza.

And they certainly do have a wide selection of flavors to tempt passersby. They have well over a dozen different flavors, most of them tropical fruit flavors (passionfruit, mango, naranjilla and more).

But the one that really stands out is the chocolate ice cream (second from the right in the back row of the photo above). It's so good that we've added it to our Cuenca Chocolate Tour.

In a city, and a country, not known for great ice cream, and especially not known for chocolate-y chocolate ice cream, this one is the best Jeff has tasted here in Cuenca.

A single scoop is $1, a double is $2. Either one is sure to put a smile on a chocolate lover's face!

Prices

If you don't usually eat much, two people could probably share a personal pizza and have a soda each for less than $10. More likely, you'll each want a pie, so the price will end up closer to $15, if you finish your meal with a cone.

Locations

There are four La Fornace locations in Cuenca, and one in Azogues.

The restaurant at 5-13 Remigio Crespo at Imbabura serves a full Italian menu, plus pizza.

The pizza and ice cream locations are:

La Fornace street view on Borrero

• Borrero near Sucre, across the street from Hotel Santa Lucia
• Gran Colombia 9-30 at Benigno Malo
• Plaza de las Américas, where Supermaxi is located, on Avenida de las Américas at Ordóñez Lasso.

The Azogues location is at Matovelle and Serrano.

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