If Marco Silvestrini gives you the cold shoulder, that's a good thing. He traffics in cold. Icy cold. And soon his brand of frosty chill will satisfy Houston's appetite for sweet snow. Dolce Neve, the Austin-based gelato shop that Silvestrini operates with his sister, Francesca Silvestrini, and her fiancé, Leopoldo Ferrarese, is set to open in the Heights this week, ushering in a new season of cold comfort in a city already feeling the heat.

Housed in a former laundromat in the strip mall at 4721 N. Main next to Morningstar (and the late great Foreign Correspondents and Canard bar), Dolce Neve is the gelato company's second shop, the first outside of Austin. The store, which will open March 30, serves Italian style gelato (all three Dolce Neve partners grew up in Italy) which can be had in a cup, in a waffle cone, as a gelato pop, or a gelato "ice cream" sandwich between two cookies.