At Gelato Messina, we’ve spent a long time working out how to make the best gelato on the planet. We think we’re pretty close. Here's how we got here...
very flavour you see is made using a unique recipe created by us. We never, ever use pre-made bases or mass-produced flavour pastes. In each of our stores, you’ll find a 40 flavour cabinet, with 35 traditional flavours and 5 rotating weekly specials. We also make our own range of gelato cakes which can be picked up or ordered from any store. They’re weird and wonderful, but it’s all in the name of putting a smile on someone’s face.
We are equally obsessed with the quality of the gelato as we are with the origin of the ingredients. So much so that we even have our own dairy farm that supplies us with super creamy jersey milk; arguably the highest quality milk you can get. We don’t just buy the best chocolate we can find, we actually make it ourselves using the highest quality single origin Ecuadorian cacao we can get our hands on.
"There's no point putting in a lot of something that's average because you're just going to get average. Put in a lot of something that's really good, you're gonna get great"
Donato Toce, Head Chef
Not only do we now produce our own milk. We produce some of the highest quality Jersey milk we’ve ever come across. Super high in cream content and full of flavour, our milk is the foundation and critical building block to producing the best gelato in the world.
read MoreMessina’s labour of love has never been so relevant when telling the story of our chocolate making machine. Imported and shipped from Italy and installed in Rosebery (Sydney), this beast was custom designed for us to make all of our chocolate from scratch.
read MoreThe nuts we currently buy, tondi di gentili dele lange, are from Italy and are honed as the best in the world. But this variety doesn’t grow very well in Australia and we wanted to grow our own so we could have more control over our gelato. Which lead us to buy our own hazelnut farm.
read MoreIt took a trip to Argentina, some long sessions (in broken Spanglish) with a sweet-talking man called Santiago, and the installation of a brand spanking new machine called a ‘Paila’. But We can now proudly say we make our own dulce de leche
in-house.
Instead of buying pre made ingredients, our in-house team of pastry chefs make everything from scratch
The brownies, the pralines, the pastries, the fudges and everything else in-between is made by our chefs at Messina HQ. We bake our own apple pies, we juice real mint leaves for the choc mint; we even make our own dulce de leche. We make the most honest, highest quality gelato we can and do our best to make sure that what you are tasting is the real deal. Anything we add to our gelato, we call 'additions'. Click below to watch some being made!
WATCH the seriesWhether it’s coming up with new flavours, custom products for events or a music playlist for the stores, we throw ourselves into it because that’s what we love. That’s the truth. We hope you love our creations as much as we love making them
Famiglia Palumbo & Tribe
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The first Messina store opened in 2002 in Darlinghurst, Sydney. Nick Palumbo was the man behind it, moving from Adelaide to pursue his first store.
It became apparent Nick wasn’t the best at customer service, so his brother Danny Palumbo took over the front of house, and Nick was left in charge of the thing he was really good at – making gelato. The name Messina comes from Nick and Danny’s Sicilian heritage, and the birth city of their parents – Messina in Sicily, Italy.
After countless coffees together & many flavour suggestions, Donato Toce (formally the head chef at A Tavola opposite our Darlinghurst store) joined the team. His weird and wonderful flavour suggestions are where our famous ‘weekly specials’ began. Donato's spreadsheet of specials now contains over 5000 different flavour combinations.
Fast forward to 2008, the Messina we know today was formed. Declan Lee – coming from a DJ and music festival background - started posting decadently mounded pots of gelato on social media, and playing around with the playlists in store to give it its now famous soundtracks. We used to get customers queuing up thinking they were waiting to get into a club...
In the 10 years which followed, we spent the time obsessing over how to make the best possible gelato we could. We opened four stores in inner city Sydney, and since then have grown to 19 across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra.
All our gelato is still made the way it used to be. It’s made from scratch, with the best possible ingredients (just with the help of some more efficient machines!). We’ve moved from making everything from a tiny space next to our Darlinghurst store, to our HQ, factory and office in Rosebery, Sydney where our dedicated team of pastry & gelato chefs make and bake everything ready to be sent out and churned fresh in store.
That’s enough from us – you can read what our customers really think of us below
“Best gelato I have ever tasted in my life! So many cool and creative flavours to choose from. There’s even weekly special flavours that are always super yummy. After trying Messina, I’ve stopped eating other brands of ice cream or gelato!"
“Great flavours, reasonably priced, the huge line just tells you that it's worth the wait! (line actually moves very fast)"
“The original (I think) and still the best. My hubby can’t eat dairy so the chocolate or salted coconut & mango sorbets are his staple. The sorbets are really creamy - no idea how they get it so, but it’s really appreciated. As for me, I try the ever changing specials. Yum."
“This is a bit of a staple for us. I guess it helps that we live nearby. The kids absolutely love it. The service is always friendly and come with a smile and they have the most amazing flavour combinations. My advice is to use the app to pay and collect loyalty points!"
“Best gelato I've had since I went to Italy last year. You owe it to yourself to try this stuff. Once you have you won't ever want to eat regular ice cream ever again."
“I didn't know until recently, but they make everything from scratch - inclyding their own chocoalte. They also have their own dairy farm for the milk. The quailty is amazing and you can really taste the difference"
At Gelato Messina our job is to make people happy. Yes we make amazing gelato with the very best, real ingredients. And yes our gelato cakes are weird and wonderful, but it’s all in the name of putting a smile on someone’s face.
