Australia

Melbourne

Can a city that imported gelato in the last twenty years already be one of the best?

Melbourne answers the editorial question by splitting into two currents that only converge in the last decade. Casa del Gelato has made gelato on Lygon Street since 1980 using fresh Australian produce and Australian milk, cream and eggs — a longevity anchor older than the ‘recent, technical’ story the city is known for. Against that sits a wave of makers who apprenticed in Italy and came home to build a scene Melbourne didn’t have: Lisa Valmorbida trained at Carpigiani Gelato University in Bologna before opening Pidapipó in 2013; Sandra Foti trained with gelato makers in Italy before opening Piccolina; Agusta Triwahyu learned the craft in a relative’s Rome gelateria before opening Beku. What tests the twenty-year claim is not the imported technique alone but what happens to it here: Gelato Messina’s Melbourne stores — opened by the Sydney chain in Fitzroy in 2013 — make everything in-house from Warrnambool milk, and Luther’s Scoops, an ice-creamery run by a Fat Duck and Clove Club alumnus, builds its custards on named local suppliers, St David Dairy and Burd eggs. Twenty years is short against a city with a century, but it is enough to produce documented, checkable local sourcing rather than only borrowed technique — and that is the specific, testable version of the question this city was added to answer.

Last checked 2026-08-21

The selected spots

7 selected

01
From Pidapipó
Pidapipó
gelato · Lisa Valmorbida, founder, trained at Carpigiani Gelato University, Bologna
The clearest embodiment of Melbourne's 'imported technique, made local' story: a founder formally trained in Italy who built a Melbourne flagship around small daily batches, named Australian honey and cheese, and a visible on-site chocolate and gelato production line rather than a fixed menu.
02
Piccolina Gelateria
gelato · Sandra Foti, owner and gelato maker
A founder who deliberately went to Italy to learn the craft before building a Melbourne-specific production operation — the nut-butter volume and named local fruit sourcing are unusually concrete signals of scale and provenance for a Melbourne gelateria.
03
From Gelato Messina (Fitzroy)
Gelato Messina (Fitzroy)
gelato · Simone Panetta (Messina co-founder, heads the Melbourne operation) and Sergio Colalucci, former gelato world champion, at the Melbourne stores
Directly tests whether Melbourne's scene is genuinely its own or a Sydney export: the answer here is explicitly both — a Sydney chain, but one that sources its Melbourne milk from Warrnambool rather than shipping product, and staffs its Melbourne kitchens with a named former world champion.
04
Casa del Gelato
gelato · Ottorino Pace, gelato maker
The one Melbourne candidate that predates the city's self-consciously technical revival by three decades, and the clearest documented example of the 'does Australian produce actually show up in the product' question: the source explicitly separates the Australian-produce fruit range from the imported-chocolate range rather than claiming everything is local.
05
Gelateria Primavera
gelato · Massimo Bidin, head gelato maker; business founded by Josh Brisbane and Con Christopoulos of The European
A CBD gelateria built by an established Melbourne hospitality operator (The European) rather than a gelato specialist importing the format wholesale, with daily churn, named pozzetti technique and a deliberately mixed classic/experimental flavour list.
06
Beku Gelato
gelato · Agusta Triwahyu, owner and gelato maker
The strongest distinctive-identity signal found in Melbourne: Italian technique applied deliberately to a non-Italian flavour tradition, with a named maker who states on the record that she uses the real ingredient rather than an essence or paste.
07
From Luther's Scoops
Luther's Scoops
ice cream · Christian Williams, founder and maker
The single clearest, most specific answer in this candidate set to whether Australian dairy and produce actually show up in the product: named local dairy (St David Dairy) and named local eggs (Burd), from a maker with an internationally trained pastry background rather than a gelato-specific one.