A DAY AT MESSINA'S

"Cause I've got a golden ticket. I've got a golden chance to make my way and with a golden ticket it's a golden day."  

(Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971)

I know exactly how Charlie Bucket felt when he visited Willy Wonka's infamous chocolate factory, because I went to visit Australia's best makers of gelato yesterday. Although instead of a golden ticket it was an email confirmation... 

We gathered at the Surry Hills store on an early Saturday morning, where a shuttle bus was waiting to take us to their tiny factory in Rozelle, right next to Adriano Zumbo's. 

Donato Toce, the head chef and co-owner (pictured below) gave us a '101' on how to make gelato and shared some of his secrets and science behind their creations. Donato gave us a few demonstrations on how to make a Tiramisu gelato and a lychee sorbet which we got to taste.

Their factory is bursting at the seams, where they produce something like a tonne of gelato and up to 110 gelato cakes a day!  MIND BLOWN! Check out their To Make list on the whiteboard behind Donato - 180 litres x 9 flavours! With two of those being salted caramel, their most popular flavour. You can see why they are soon moving to a larger factory based in Rosebery, where they will be setting up a factory outlet! Woohoo!

All of their gelato originates from that tiny factory and is distributed throughout their numerous stores across Sydney and their store in Melbourne, where they are chilled and churned on site. We were told about the upcoming expansion of the Messina empire with future stores being developed in Miranda (NSW) and Coolangatta (QLD). 

Meanwhile we were fed a 5 course degustation menu all featuring gelati.
First off the bat was the Strawberry and Rhubarb fields forever, featuring caramelised rhubarb, compressed strawberries, baby basil, strawberry sorbet and dry caramel powder.



Second was the BHP, with a banana mousse, burnt honey gelato, fresh pear and pate sable. This was my favourite, the flavour combinations so subtle yet so complementary. 

Then we Oooh and Aaah'ed over the bowls of the Crunchies, which was so decadent and delicious and left us giggling looking at each other's gold-stained lips.

Another degustation delight was the Roll it and Fold it with a smooth mango sorbet, a refreshing apple and orange blossom creme leger, croissant crunch and croquant. 

And the final item on the menu was the Fra...what's going here... - which was probably the most interesting (but least visually enticing, if I have to be picky) of the lot - with a Pecan gelato, radish cream served on a Japanese sponge.

We watched on as the head pastry chef prepared his final touches for  the Willy Wonka inspired Dr Evil's Magic Mushroom gelato cake. I was mesmerised by the oozing red glaze being poured over the hemisphere of chocolate gelato. Isn't it just divine?!

If any of my nearest and dearest are reading this, let it be known that my birthday is coming up (cough cough HINT HINT HINT wink wink... (Hmm, subtle)

A cross section diagram  of Messina's amazing creation (Image from Gelato Messina)

MESSINA CARNIVALE at the Sydney Festival

For my peeps and homeboys in Sydney, it's time again for the annual Sydney festival. One of the highlights of the festival for a gelato-obsessed individual, such as myself, is 'Il Carnivale di Gelato Messina'. This pop up stall is one of the largest and most frequented attractions that is featuring in Hyde Park over the next few weeks.

There's so much to see in Sydney lately. We started the day by seeing the Exxopolis inflatable maze by the Architects of Air (Alan Parkinson). It's one of the coolest things I've ever experienced! There were so many pretty colours and it was such a novelty being inside an inflatable room. It got pretty hot so we cooled off with some artisan icy poles by Liana Raine. My Blueberry Mint icy pole really hit the spot.

Cooling off with Liana Raine icy poles (L to R: David having a Watermelon Lemonade, Jess having a Blueberry Mint and Aniket having a Strawberry Cream)

For those not in the know, Gelato Messina is somewhat of an institution in Sydney. It is THE place to go for a good gelato. A friend and I tend to judge a good weekend based on the number of gelati we had at Messina. And consequently, how many gym classes we need to do that week to make up for that number.

In fact, I'm such a fan of Messina that I'm taking a Gelato Appreciation class in October! Only 272 days to go...

Me and my beloved Messina.

Our next stop was the Messina Darlinghurst shop, where I was well behaved, only ordering one scoop of their Honey Pot special. Ordering just the one scoop because I had my heart set on some serious gluttony at the Sydney Festival. I got loads of crunchy honey-comb, which was mixed into a rich milk chocolate, honey and coconut gelato. Divine!

When I finally reached Hyde Park and assembled a group of friends, we went straight to the Messina tent and ordered the lot, well almost!

Perhaps we went a little Messina crazy?!

The Messinawiener

The Messinawiener resembled a Dagwood Dog and was made from a maple syrup gelato, fried in a pancake batter and dipped in a superb plum sauce. I would love to have seen Messina's take on the great Aussie Chiko Roll - perhaps next time?!

Left: 'So Wrong It's Right' Sideshow Sundae. Right: Yeeah Dawg

Next was the Yeeah Dawg! - a hot dog (or as my better half would say, hawdawg) made from a sweet finger bun with a milk chocolate gelato 'sausage' with passionfruit 'mustard', raspberry 'ketchup', buttercream 'mayo' and coconut 'onions'.

The 'So Wrong It's Right' sundae was probably my favourite, in terms of flavour. This Sideshow Sundae was made from cheesecake gelato with potato chips, duck fat caramel and bacon marshmallow. I couldn't really taste the bacon flavour but the duck fat caramel was awesome. I imagine Elvis would have liked this one too and then he would have curled his lip a few times, saying 'Uh huh'.

The Gelatoffee Apple

The Gelatoffee Apple, which was a green apple sorbet coated in milk chocolate and then glazed in a red candy apple finish, which apparently tasted like redskin lollies! Yum!

The gorgeous Alira also approves!

So if you're in Sydney, get yourself to Hyde Park before the Festival ends on the 27th of January. There's even a jumping castle (in the shape of Stone Henge!) for you to burn off all the gelati goodness. We all had so much fun!