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Even though the door says “Exit”, it’s worth entering gelato-maker Messina’s new Marrickville headquarters by the front foyer entrance. Glass doors open to the two-storey, mid-20th century building’s original terrazzo floors, blooming internal garden and Brady Bunch-esque wood and iron staircase.

It’s like entering a mini 1960s airport vestibule but with access to 40 kinds of gelato, bottled Jersey milk and a bevy of finessed chocolate treats in glass display cases.

Messina’s new headquarters, which is four times the size of their previous home at Rosebery and took more than two years to create, is a factory, decor wonderland and one-stop creamy-things-in-cones shop.

Set in the heart of Marrickville’s industrial zone, it is the only outlet to offer all Messina products, from the 35 classic flavours and five rotating specials to merchandise, gelato cakes and other takeaway edibles.

It is also a striking sequence of considered design. From Victoria Street gardens, revitalised into a cactus, succulent and white-pebble oasis courtesy of Messina founder Nick Palumbo’s wife, to blushing marble counters, raspberry hued ceilings, pistachio-coloured outdoor umbrellas and a huge factory out the back, it is a swish slice of industry.

They’ve even prepared plenty of space between the walls and counter, partly to deal with the influx of gelato lovers but also to counter humans, plunging their mouths onto scoops of sweetly crunchy pistachio praline or velvety hazelnut and chocolate gianduia, wandering haphazardly in an ice-cream daze.

On this crisp and sunny afternoon, amid an influx of after-school visitors, one small boy walks directly into a glass door while concentrating on his two scoops of honeycomb-flecked hokey pokey and biscuit-crumbed cookies and cream.

Factory Theatre patrons leave afternoon gigs next door and stand unmoving, their tongues tracing pistachio praline, amaretti biscuit through pannacotta gelato or the blushing whirl of poached boysenberry coulis inside yoghurt gelato.

Messina, which was founded in 2002 and now has 28 Australian stores, and two in Hong Kong, still offers samples of their ice-cream via staff-swiped wooden sticks. There is a certain joy about peering into the 40 deep-frozen barrels of ice-cream set under glass lids in a long pink and grey marble counter, although short fans will require a leg-up.

There is also a complete range of take-home Messina merchandise, cakes and
lolly treats. Subtly lit dark honey hued timber shelves offer T-shirts, socks, bucket hats, candles, mugs, lip balm and body foam, all the colour of gelato or bearing Messina insignia.

Fans of the Dr Evil’s Magic Mushroom cake can dress their baby in a onesie daubed with a cheerful walking fungi.

Jars of chocolate hazelnut and dulce de leche spread sit near buckets of pick’n’mix and three fridges offering four kinds of Bavarian cake (tiramisu, lemon meringue, malted chocolate and Iced Vovo), plus bake-at-home cookie dough and cookie pies.

Bottles of unhomogenised Jersey milk, from Messina’s 400-plus pasture-fed cows in Numurkah, country Victoria, carry the creamy basis of almost everything edible in store.

Which leads to the chocolate display. Poring over the chocolates is like studying jewelled artefacts in a Milanese museum. Chocolate bark, sold by the gram and studded with pistachio, hazelnut and almond sit near delicately decorated finger-length chocolate bars I’d be happy to wear as hair clips.

Order three – the fairy bread, vovovroom and lamington – and sit in the sun at the window counter licking their ends. Or wander through the staff car park to peruse artist Elliott Routledge’s perspective-skewing mural across the electricity box and then inner workings of the Messina factory, accessed by an internal glass corridor.

Here you can press your nose against the glass to ogle massive steel ice-cream, chocolate and baking machines as chefs experiment in the test kitchen or sprinkle crushed pistachio on tiny logs of dark chocolate. Every ingredient in Messina’s edible products is made here.

The weekend after, an opening party featuring food from Baba’s Place and Whole Beast Butchery takes over the car park and, in coming months, Messina Creative’s dining room opens for degustation and a la carte meals.

Just don’t expect to seek gelato by parking your car with ease. Ice-cream and chocolate lovers, even devotees of handsome building or factory design, should catch the bus for a lick of Messina’s very good stuff.