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Messina Creative’s six-course degustation, served in an in-house restaurant at the ice-cream maker’s Marrickville headquarters, is a marriage of art, science, theatre and wisps of magic.

A 90-minute sitting offered three nights a week, the menu, which features six non-alcoholic drink pairings, is created from months of design, collaboration, testing and experimentation. Importantly, it is neither stuffy or pompous.

The whole experience – from peering round the curtained front door entrance at the appointed time to everyone leaving with a hand-filled jar of honey from bees at Messina’s dairy farm in Numurkah, Victoria – is all-ages fun.

I would argue it warrants brushed hair and a smart outfit, if only to match the evening’s intricate orchestration of meticulously created food, all paired with sweet or savoury gelato or sorbet rarely found on top of a cone.

The magic of all this is heightened by dishes appearing as if from nowhere.

The room, edged by contemporary art, wide windows and dark semi-translucent curtains, is low-lit. Candles flicker in dark glass jars. Music and light levels change throughout the evening. This is a smallish (22-seat) room but the moody feel gives space and intimacy to each table.

There is, though, no way to mute the “Wows” as Joe Bailey, who co-runs the restaurant with fellow collaborators Go Amano and Alina Yourchenko, brings each course.

Here is broccoli and sugar snap pea veloute with kombu (edible kelp), a mint tuille and salted yoghurt gelato. Looking like a snowy moon in a velvety green pond crowned with an emerald paper-thin flower, it jingles with silky, fresh, alive flavours.

Its drink accompaniment, sweet mint and citrus leaf tea in a dainty glass cup, is like drinking spring.

Equally impressive is the beef pie with cream jus, ketchup sorbet and a mini pint of chocolate non-alcoholic stout beer. Lovely dark golden pastry, comfortingly hearty beef filling, sweet hoppy stout and a how-did-they-do-that scoop of tomato sauce ice-cream.

Each dish is art. But then you eat it, your brain identifying the fresh vegetables, fruits, dairy varieties and fragrant herbs within a sauce, sorbet or crumble that seconds ago resembled a delicate woodland glade or a dark golden planet carrying a mossy asteroid. After every mouthful, we are a room of people mentally calculating how makrut lime, tarragon, mixed herbs, ketchup, salted yoghurt and garlic butter can become a smooth oval spoonful of gelato or sorbet.

A good example is the first course. A glossy bread bun, made in collaboration with Shadow Baking, comes with gelato garlic butter. Light, pungent and excellently creamy, it melts beautifully, and butterfully into the warm bread.

One course features mixed herb gelato with spanner crab salad, mascarpone and finger lime, paired with cucumber, apple and ginger spritz. Another is Gundagai lamb rare with chargrilled fennel, olive crumble and morel sauce.

Indefatigably informative, Bailey explains each course and answers every question. “Is that really ketchup gelato?” (Yes). “Can I eat the golden coin in my rhubarb and riesling Old Fashioned?” (Yes). “How do you make a tiny flower-shaped tuille from mint? (In the oven using a mould).

When the whole frozen lemon dessert arrives, its frosty skin a yellow submarine holding sweet and citrussy tiramisu layers, we’re still amazed.

The magic of all this is heightened by dishes appearing as if from nowhere. There is no visible kitchen or associated preparation noise, just curtained doors and a serving counter at which the trio bend over dishes like scientists or sculptors at work.

Bailey, who also oversees the wine and cocktail menu, opened Messina Creative with Amano and Yourchenko in 2023 after it moved from Darlinghurst.

The restaurant is part of Messina but creative decisions are almost entirely in the trio’s hands.

“They trust us, which is amazing,” Bailey says. “And that allows us to be as creative as we can be.”

For smaller bites, Messina Creative features Snack Bar, a Sunday la carte menu for drop-in only where individual degustation dishes, and Bailey’s drinks, can be ordered. “What we’re trying to do is create amazing experiences that make people feel special and comfortable,” Bailey says. “Our only parameter is perfection.”