I can make my own gelato and I have, any flavour, any combination, any kind that I want.
There is something to be said about freshly made ice-cream, not made then frozen to set it. That step often add crystallisation into the ice-cream which causes it to be more corse in texture and thus less creamy.
Sure there are lots of flavours and ingredients but to judge what is the BEST ice-cream, you have to strip it all back, hide behind nothing, don't hide behind chocolate chucks pieces or fancy toppings. Simply vanilla on a cone.
To that, it is Cremia in Japan, ice-cream made from the milk from Hokkaido. It is like nothing else you have ever tasted simply because the milk it is made from has different fat content than your average dairy cow. The ice-cream is smooth yet weirdly dense but not heavy. It coats your tongue with the fat from it just for a brief moment after you swallow it, lingers just long enough until you have the next bite. It gets really close in terms of balance of soft but soft not because it is whipped full of air like most soft serve you get, it is soft because of its ingredients.
It is simply delectable. Words cannot do it justice.