Affogato: how to make and enjoy it

So many 90s food trends – the foccaccia, for example – have thankfully stayed in the past. But there is one 90s throwback I am always pleased to see on the menu: the affogato.
Remember them? Literally meaning “drowned”, the combination of hot espresso over ice-cream creates a concoction that’s neither a coffee float nor a coffee spider, and like most good things, the best one you’ll ever have is probably the first one you downed.
Few things are as simple yet so fulfilling. The path there is zen itself: take ice-cream, or gelato if it’s your preference, and scoop it into a glass or cup. Then freeze the cup with the scoop in it so it’s ice-cold. Cold ice-cream + cold cup = ice-cream won’t melt.

Affogato with biscotti. Photograph: Alper Çuğun/flickr

Choose your favourite bean (opt for a bean well-suited to milk) and always use espresso – never, ever instant coffee, though an espresso pot might work at a pinch. Then, when you’re ready, pour your coffee directly on to the ice-cream and serve immediately. You could spike it with a shot of booze (think Amaretto or Frangelico) or garnish with biscotti. Either way, the cold cup keeps the ice-cream solid, leaving you to scoop the perfect mix of cold and hot with each mouthful.
Purists stick with vanilla ice-cream – others, like Sydney’s Campos, get sneaky and scoop Belgian white chocolate into a frozen latte glass, pressing the scoop down hard into the glass so the coffee stays up top, coating every spoonful with caffeinated bliss.
Enmore’s world-topping Cow and the Moon combine Italian-sourced caramelised almonds with single-origin coffee and Madagascan vanilla – but you’ll need to order separately if you want it as a real affogato, with the coffee poured on. With queues just for gelato regularly topping 30 minutes, that’s a tall order.

Chef Allegra McEvedy’s affogato. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian

Other places, like the Lab near Wynyard in Sydney, go free-form and have a soft-serve machine up front for patrons to swirl their own ice-cream into a cup before they pour the coffee on. The result is a rich, if childhood-tinged outcome reinforced by the playful candy-striped cups.
Never too hot, rarely too cold, the perfect affogato is always just right. What makes the perfect affogato hit?