We Are all Soldiers in the Melbourne Gelato Wars

On ice cream, the great frozen yoghurt correction, and the top 4 scoops in town

Illustration: Lucia Calfapietra

I have a small, carefully cultivated cadre of definitive food opinions. These are the cream of the crop, the fior di latte if you will, of the self evident truths that I will not back down upon. To others, they are “hot takes”, which I feel diminishes the profound research and deliberation which has gone into each one of these, but I digress. I will not reveal all here, but I will share a select few; the contents of these opinions are simply too volcanic to be contained in one article. In line with today’s topic, these are all Italian-centric.

1. Dried pasta is better than fresh pasta.

To elaborate; the silky, luxurious mouthfeel of fresh pasta is one of life’s great pleasures. I am not denigrating fresh pasta. Nor do I mean to suggest that the romance of making it at home, candles flickering in the background, an algorithm-generated Italian Jazz spotify playlist setting the mood, is not an act of profound love and meditative wellness. I support you in your “Eat Pray Love” era. However, here are the facts: dried pasta is more versatile, satisfying texturally, and affordable. It’s just better. The clear exception here is any sort of filled pasta, and I must be very clear here: almost anything is preferably to mass produced pre-made ravioli in a can or plastic packet, including starvation.

2. All white coffee is the same, just get on with it.

If you are someone who has ever sent back a flat white because you ordered a latte, look away now. You are the problem. At some stage in Melbourne’s ascent to the coffee mecca, we lost our way, and a socio-political debate over what classification of milky drink we ordered took hold. We’ve taken our eye off the ball here. Allow me to remove the veil. Cappuccino, flat white, latte? In 2023, those are the same thing. Many cafes no longer even bother with chocolate powder on capps, no doubt out of some ingrained apathy towards those customers who fussily insist that a different shaped vessel somehow implies a different recipe.

3. The gelato in Italy sucks.

This one may take some explaining, but hear me out. When surrounded by the golden tinged cobblestoned streets of Rome, the music of the city ringing in your ears, it’s understandable to get swept up in the moment. Our senses are overwhelmed. When gazing out over the grandeur of the Piazza San Marco, the drawing room of Europe, you could be forgiven for being so enraptured by Venetian splendour that your palate enters a momentary leave of absence. Well, folks, I’m about to burst your bubble. That ice cream you has on Italian vacation probably sucked. In fact, that somehow dry, oversweet, artificially coloured blob of preservatives and stabilisers definitely sucked, and almost certainly cost you $14AUD from a tourist trap masquerading as a legitimate gelateria. 

So now we reach my contention. At this stage in our city’s young history, we are living through an unprecedented Gelato gilded age, and in fact, (and this is a hot take), the gelato in Melbourne is better than in Italy. 

To chart how we got here, we need only travel back a few years. Gelato has always been a part of our city, dotted along high streets and shopping centres, serving a product far removed from the fresh, artisanal product we now take for granted. Back then, vast, gently-inclined plastic tubs of iced confection filled long glass cabinets. Curiously curved piles of thick, neon-coloured gelato, the strawberry the colour of a neon pink Barbie nightmare, the choc-mint a Dali-esque vision of hell. That’s not to say this gelati was unpleasant, it was just a different era, where a mass produced product with extended shelf life was preferred. Brands like Aurora, who still exist to this day, and the dearly departed Dairy Bell, are examples of this genre.

As the millennium gave way to the more health-conscious 2000s, a string of new contenders entered the frozen dessert scene. New Zealand Natural’s reduced fat frozen yoghurts became a shopping centre staple, eventually birthing what we now recognise as The Great DIY Fro-Yo Overcorrection. By 2014, Australia’s capital cities were completely overrun with minimalist frozen yoghurt shops, all loosely based on the same format, where customers would pull their own yoghurt from large open frontage machines, then sidestep politely along a table of various fruits and toppings. The format was cost effective and popular, requiring less staff to man during service, and operating under a lucrative “pay by weight” model, which plays the clever psychological trick of making you feel like you only have yourself to blame for spending $19.40 on a cup of yoghurt.

The FroYo bubble wouldn't last, market leader Yo-Chi (initially brought to ground amid the collapse of George Calombaris’s MAdE group) the last of the Fro-hicans still in business. Just as the frozen yoghurt boom reached its hysterical apex, a contrarian figure entered the scene. Lisa Valmordiba, heir to the Conga Foods empire and member of one of Australia’s most prominent families, opened the first iteration of Pidapipo as a Faraday Street pop-up. Valmordiba’s brand of delicate and fresh gelati was an instant success, her techniques honed at Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna, which sounds fanciful but is, I am reliably informed, a legitimate entity. Pidapipo’s ethos for locality, only using fresh ingredients, and making the product on site echoed the evolution that pizza had previously undergone in Melbourne, the strict guidelines of tradition informing the craft.

The results were incredible, and despite being borne from one of Melbourne’s most influential hospitality families, Pidapipo’s success came from word of mouth, the quality of the product warranting the praise. Eventually expanding into a permanent location as part of the family’s King & Godfree complex, Pidapipo became a social media sensation, birthing long lines up Lygon for a taste of Valmordiba’s seemingly simple gelato. The appeal of Pidapipo lies in its freshness, something difficult to distil in a frozen product, but owing to the purity of its core ingredients. An example of this is a signature Pidapipo flavour, “fior di latte”, or flower of the milk, the brand’s ethos made manifest. What flavour is it? Milk. Just milk. The best quality milk available, sweetened and gently churned, the result impossibly creamy, redolent of a semi-solid satin. The brand’s colourful and playful design and spirit of collaboration has seen Pidapipo expand to four different locations across Melbourne, and earned more than its fair share of imitators. 

Sandra Foti’s story is slightly different to Valmordiba, but the song remains the same. A former graphic designer with a passion for the frozen arts, Foti opened Piccolina in Hawthorn in 2015, since spawning 7 outlets across the city, including a foray into shopping centres. While Piccolina is a perfectly good product with a loyal fanbase, the brand’s style, design ethos, and, clearly, name could be charitably described as heavily influenced by Pidapipo. I’d go as far to suggest that a significant percentage of both brand’s customers probably don’t realise they are separate entities. Still, quality shines through, and there are no limits on how many high quality gelateria we require in Melbourne. In fact, the opposite is true; one on every street, I say.

At around the same time, the big dog of Sydney’s sweet treat scene, Gelato Messina, brought its irrepressible hype machine to Melbourne. Initially opening on Smith Street, Messina now boasts 5 stores in Victoria, and a market-leading 30 stores across Australia and Hong Kong. Famed for its quirky flavours and nightclub atmosphere, Messina too has a large and loyal fanbase. Indeed, Melbourne’s tribal nature extends beyond just football allegiances; you can tell a lot about a person by their preferred gelateria. For my money, Messina’s firm texture and occasionally childish flavours harken back to the neon green mint flavours of yore, but they are certainly a powerhouse of marketing and scale. 

As the years rolled on, the city’s obsession with gelato has fed into an unprecedented boom in venues. Increasingly non-traditional takes on the gelateria are now popping up as commonly as post-Pidapipo replicants. Born in Footscray, the Filipino-inspired Kariton Sorbetes is now rapidly expanding across the city, bringing with it the unique flavours and textures of traditional Filipino desserts. There’s Hawthorn’s Kori and Carlton favourite Hareyu, both utilising Japanese ingredients. Northside duo Kenny Lover and Fluffy Torpedo opt for the shock and awe approach, inflicting soy sauce and vegemite flavours upon plucky punters' palates. Barely a month now passes without some exciting and innovative take on the gelateria opening across Melbourne, and the city is better for it, forever liberated from the frostbitten and artificial gelati of yesteryear. Inferior ice cream simply won’t cut the custard on the front line of Melbourne’s gelato wars.

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My top 4: Gelato & Ice Cream

4. Sundae School Ice Creamery

        Jock’s Ice Cream & Sorbets

While this article has largely focused on traditional Italian style gelati, there’s still a place in my heart for good old fashioned ice cream. In Melbourne there are several outstanding proponents of the creamier, eggier variety, and I’ve gone from one from the new guard and an old school favourite. Sundae School Ice Creamery, now in its northside incarnation in Fitzroy North, has made a welcome return to the scoop scene after closing its original Caulfield location. The flavours are finessed and considered, a chef’s eye for quality elevating Sundae School above your average suburban ice creamery. Further south in secluded Albert Park, where ladies lunch at leisure and the cost of parking requires a bank loan, the legendary Jock’s still scoops old school ice cream, as it has for over 20 years. I’ve always loved the unpretentious style at Jock’s, and you will struggle to find a better example of ice cream in this city than their famous Hokey Pokey flavour.

     3. Kariton Sorbetes

Candidly, I don’t personally love Kariton all that much, and am largely putting them here because my beloved partner Alice is completely obsessed with their bold, colourful, Asian-leaning flavours. This also serves as a bit of an experiement to see if Alice actually reads these posts, but if she doesn’t, it’s because she is scrolling through the Karition Instagram feed hungrily instead. A few personal flavour highlights; Kariton’s take on choc mint chip, the piercing fragrance of vietnamese mint creating a haunting alchemy, and a calimansi & gin sorbet, tart, cleansing, and audaciously bitter.

     2. Pidapipo

I’ve gone on enough about the virtues of Pidapipo, so instead, I’m going to list my top three ever Pidapipo flavours.

iii: A tie between banana milk, a gently flavoured gelato made by steeping the milk in aromatics, and banana, a more dense, fruity concoction made from actual banana flesh. The fact that the two are so different, and that there’s two versions of banana at all, tells you everything you need to know.

ii: Honeycomb + Vanilla bean, the intensely bittersweet copper rivers of caramel, swimming through siken gelato peppered with fresh vanilla seeds. Orgasmic.

i: Christmas Pudding Flavour. Boozy brandy-soaked dried fruit spiking assertively spiced gelati, all nutmeg and clove, slivers of toasted almond and shaved dark chocoloate adding texture. An annual delight.

1. Gelateria Primavera

   The gelato counter at Spring Street Grocer is less assuming than many of the stainess steel-clad, neon lit bauhaus Gelato palaces across Melbourne, but for my money, it’s the best. Here, the palate is mature, the flavours as much a reflection of the terroir of the natural ingredients as they are sugar and milk. It is often said that great gelato makers judge one another on their pistachio flavour, and if that is the marker, Primavera springs to to the top of the leaderboard. A deep, Wes Anderson green, somehow almost savoury, at once earthen and liltingly delicate, Primavera uses imported pistachios from Bronte, a village on the slopes of Mount Etna, in their gelato. It’s enough to restore a man’s faith in humanity. I’m a gelato romantic, and nowhere is my love affair stronger than here.