In Italy, the meal isn’t over until something dolce (sweet) is enjoyed.

At Gio Italian Grill, we make all of our desserts right here, in our kitchen. We use only the finest, freshest ingredients. And, like the rest of our menu, we follow Italian tradition, but we add our unique Gio twist!

Our Desserts

Chocolate Fudge Cake – The soft chocolate center and rich cake will melt in your mouth. Our warm Chocolate Fudge Cake is served with fresh, homemade whipped cream and strawberry puree. Nutella Pizza – A Gio Original! Chocolate hazelnut spread on fresh baked pizza crust… topped with fresh fruit of the day. This dessert is perfect for sharing! Lemon Panna Cotta – Creamy custard with hints of lemon and vanilla bean. A must have! Tiramisu – Made with espresso and dark rum-soaked lady fingers and sweetened mascarpone Zabaglione – With fresh berries—sweet Italian pudding Cannoli – Classic Sicilian pastry filled with sweet ricotta

The Origins of Our Classic Italian Desserts

Many of our desserts have their roots in classic, even ancient Italy. As Italians, we grew up with these desserts and we love to share them with our guests. Learn more about what makes them so special…and classic! Lemon Panna Cotta – Panna Cotta, Italian for cooked cream, is a classic Italian dessert. This elegant, softly set custard is smooth as silk with a hint of lemon and vanilla bean. Panna Cotta is made by blending thick cream, egg white, and sometimes honey. Then, the mixture is baked in a bain-marie — or water bath — in a low oven. Panna Cotta is believed to have originated in the Northern Italian region of Piedmont although it is eaten all over Italy. It is unknown exactly how or when this dessert came to be, but some stories suggest that cream, for which mountainous Northern Italy is famous, was historically eaten plain or sweetened with fruit or hazelnuts.   Tiramisu – Tiramisu, meaning “pick me up” or “lift me up” is another classic Italian dessert. Traditionally, it is made of ladyfingers (Italian: Savoiardi) dipped in coffee, layered with a whipped mixture of eggs, sugar, and mascarpone cheese, flavored with cocoa. Most accounts of the origin of tiramisu date its invention to the 1960s in the region of Veneto, Italy, at the restaurant “Le Beccherie” in Treviso, Italy. Gio  makes Tiramisu with espresso and dark rum-soaked lady fingers and sweetened mascarpone cheese. Zabaglione – Zabaglione is a simple Italian dessert traditionally made with egg yolks, sugar, and sometimes Marsala wine. Some say that Zabaglione was invented in the 16th Century in Florence, Italy in the court of the Medici. It is classified as a “caudle” (a sauce used to fill pies or tarts) rather than a custard. The original pre-sixteenth-century version of zabaglione was a drink made from or wine or ale thickened with egg yolks. Cannoli – Another classic Italian dessert! Cannoli originated in Sicily and are still an essential part of Sicilian cuisine. The singular of cannoli is cannolo, meaning “little tube”. Cannoli consist of tube-shaped shells of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy ricotta cheese mixture. Cannoli originally come from the Palermo and Messina areas and were historically prepared as treats during Carnevale. Cannoli can be traced back to the Arabs during the Emirate of Sicily, an Islamic state which existed from 831 to 1072. Initially, they were deep fried dough tubes filled with various sweets, which were a popular pastry across the Islamic world, from Al-Andalus to Iraq, including Sicily. The dessert eventually became a year-round staple throughout Italy.