‘We brought him 4kg of ice-cream’: Pope Francis’s parlour shares papal favourites

Sebastian Padrón says Pope Francis and other high-ranking Vatican officials became regular customers. Photograph: Victor Sokolowicz/The Guardian

When Sebastian Padrón opened his ice-cream parlour around the corner from Pope Francis’s home in Casa Santa Marta in Vatican City, his wife, Silvia, came up with a clever way of ingratiating her husband with his fellow Argentinian.

“She told me: ‘Go and bring an ice-cream to Pope Francis,’” said Padrón. “I said: ‘Impossible.’”