Melbourne’s 15 best ice cream and gelato spots

SUMMER is all about gelato and ice cream. But where are the top Melbourne spots to find the sweet iced treats? Here’s 15 of the best.

SHS Summer food special: Melbourne's Best Ice Creams. Luca Burgess 2, with a Pidapipo gelato cup, flavors mango and pistachio. Picture: Kylie Else

IT’S a hot summer’s day and your sweet tooth needs satisfying. Luckily, there’s no shortage of spots in Melbourne to find gelato and ice cream.

Here are Melbourne’s 15 best spots for sweet iced treats.

Pidapipo

299 Lygon St, Carlton

After a pop-up store proved wildly successful, Lisa Valmorbida opened the doors to her permanent gelato store last summer and has since become a sweet Lygon St success.

All gelato is made fresh daily on site, with the changing range of 20 flavours, from the traditional — chocolate, lemon or ricotta and fig — through new inventions passionfruit pav, musk crema or rhubarb and vincotto.

Don’t miss the oh-so-trendy Nutella swirl, or always popular salted caramel, all served in one of the best-looking stores on the street.

Gelato Messina

237 Smith St, Fitzroy (also Richmond and Windsor)

There’s plenty of flavours to choose from at Gelato Messina in Fitzroy.

Join the queue — Messina is a magnet for gelato lovers and for good reason. Flavours are an interesting mix of traditional — vanilla, pistachio and choc mint — or more adventurous.

Pear and rhubarb includes poached spiced rhubarb for a bit of a kick. The Apple Pie has apple gelato with homemade apple pie throughout, the salted caramel and white chocolate has large chunks of white chocolate and the poached figs in marsala is something for the adults with baby figs gently poached in fortified Italian cooking wine.

It’s gelato, but not as we know it, and the new stores are proving equally as popular as the Smith St original. And if you can’t face leaving the house, you can now order Messina gelato delivered straight to your door via suppertime.com.au.

How good is that!

Tutti Frutti Artisan Gelato

5 Blake St, Mornington

Ice cream and sorbets are made on site using local, fresh produce. The beach is only five minutes away and there’s plenty of indoor and outdoor seating provided.

This is seaside ice-cream at its best, with 40-plus flavours and 24 to choose from each day — salted caramel with chocolate-coated pretzels, or the choc ice cream with popping candy and raspberries are memorable additions to the range.

Il Melograno

76 High St, Northcote

Want an ice cream with a twist? Head to Il Melograno in Northcote.

Il Melograno is in the heart of trendy Westgarth, it is cool and spacious with a courtyard where can soak up the sun while enjoying a gourmet ice-cream or sorbet.

This is the place to go if you want your ice cream with a twist. The chocolate and rosemary is a big winner, and salted macadamia is also popular.

This summer, the gelato in brioche is sure to be a hit, while the Sicilian granita is a tasty way to keep cool.

Ice Cream Shoppe

199 Nelson Place, Williamstown

Williamstown is home to a number of ice cream shops and this is one of the longest surviving. It’s not hard to see why. The ice cream is award winning, there are five or six fridges busting with different flavours and the shop is opposite the picturesque waterfront and Commonwealth Reserve park. Perfect ice cream. Perfect location. A winning combination for all ages.

Fritz gelato

334 Bridge Rd, Richmond

Fritz Gelato Richmond has some award-winning treats on offer.

You’ll find something to please everyone at this store. With 150 different flavours there is something to suit all tastebuds — young, old and young at heart.

Bestsellers include salted caramel, caramelised fig and roasted almond and the panacotta and raspberry is a popular choice, too. Or try the award-winning hazelnut, plum pudding or coffee-flavours.

If sorbet is more your style, the passionfruit, raspberry and banana are favourites.

N2 Fitzroy

329 Brunswick St, Fitzroy (also CBD)

N2 Fitzroy take their ice cream, including the nitrogen gelato chocolate and salted pretzel, seriously.

Ice-cream making at N2 is pure theatre with the use of liquid nitrogen and a raft of hi-tech equipment to make gelato on order. It is served at a perfect temperature of -6C — these guys take their ice-cream seriously.

The always popular crème brulee is a vanilla custard number with a burnt sugar top to crack into, while other new flavours include the matcha cupcake, kinky kinder and pink lemonade sorbet.

Will’s Batch

435 Centre Road, Bentleigh (also Elsternwick)

With more than 50 flavours on sale at any one time, there’s something for all ages at Wills Batch. Kids love the bubblegum or rainbow — and they should try the confetti that has M&Ms swirled through.

For sorbets, the blue lemonade is a favourite with tiny tastebuds. Adults come here for the nut-based flavours like the decadent peanut butter fudge and the ‘Paulie Walnuts’ — Wills Batch’s tribute to the Sopranos legend. It has a banana base with caramel and walnuts.

Gelatissimo

197 Lygon St, Carlton (also Southland)

There’s almost always something new at Gelatissimo in Carlton.

No artificial colours or flavours and made fresh in store — that’s the Gelatissimo promise and that’s why you’ll find a queue day and night at this Lygon St hotspot. Lychee, burnt caramel and pecan and choc truffle tip the scales to the exotic, while vanilla, lemon and choc are favourite staples. New flavours are constantly added — the choc cherry bliss is just one new addition to the roster that has found many fans.

7 Apples Gelato

75 Acland St, St Kilda

This family run business has been a landmark in St Kilda for more than a decade. The store is bright and fresh and the ice cream flavours — with more than 100 in the range — constantly evolve so on most visits there will be a new taste sensation to try. Kids love the strawberry and watermelon. Adults love the Fererro Rocher and salted caramel. Classic lemon sorbet is also a winner.

Miinot

71 Melville Rd, Pascoe Vale South

Fancy some boutique goodness? Miinot is your go.

“We like to call ourselves a gelato boutique as opposed to a gelataria, as we’re tiny and aren’t open late,” says owner Emma Nicholas of her family-run Miinot in West Brunswick.

But while it might be small in stature, the gelato is huge on taste, with 12-plus flavours made daily on site.

While chocolate, vanilla and lemon are the only constants, keep an eye out for pavlova, after dinner mint (choc mint) and the El Scorchio (made with chilli) for something different. And a new addition for summer, the Bellini is a prosecco and white peaches adults-only treat. A real winner.

Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery

35 Old Healesville Rd, Yarra Glen

Enjoy an ice cream in the sun at Yarra Valley Chocolaterie & Ice Creamery.

Kids and adults alike will love the free chocolate tastings and chatting with the European chocolatiers at this popular chocolaterie, but in summer the ice creamery truly hits the spot.

Sit in the sun or sprawl on the lawns with a cup or cone of artisan ice cream made from local ingredients — Yarra Valley strawberries are particularly good right now — or grab a tub to go.

Gelobar

74 Lygon St, East Brunswick

A long time before the queues formed out the front of Gelato Messina, those in the know headed to Gelobar to wait in line for their fix of great gelato.

Since 1991, the crowds have come for chocolate, lemon and coffee gelato cones and cups, along with more modern flavours, such as the Kinder Surprise or salted peanut.

They’ve recently expanded and created a cafe, where you can sip espresso and enjoy something from the pasticceria — an excellent cannoli, perhaps, or their famous mille-feuille.

Hello Gelo

15 Anderson St, Yarraville

Hello Gelo is a little gem in Yarraville.

This is a little gem in the heart of Yarraville Village. Light and bright and with a retro black and white chequered floor, this is where you’ll find premium ice cream handmade by owner Scott Zteegstra to his own recipes.

The fruity ice creams are particularly tasty and are made with at least 25 per cent real fruit. Kids will enjoy sitting on the mezzanine level and watching the world go by outside.

Jock’s Ice Cream

83 Victoria Ave, Albert Park

So close to the beach you can smell the sea, Jock’s has been making ice cream and sorbets in Melbourne since 2001. And the faithful flock to his store to taste his handmade ice-cream made with local produce.

It’s a perfect spot for families to stop by when on the way to the beach, or after a day on the sand. On any day there will be more than 30 flavours on offer and they change according to time of year, what ingredients are available and at their peak.

As a Kiwi, Jock likes a pavlova themed ice-cream with crunchy meringue, while more sophisticated tastes might go for the exotic black rice pudding ice cream — a Balinese flavoured concoction based on a traditional dish.

— with Dan Stock