GELATO MESSINA STORY
We have spent a long time working out how to make the best gelato on the planet. We think we are pretty close. Here is how we got here.
NOT JUST ANY SCOOP SHOP
The name Messina was inspired by Nick and Danny’s Sicilian heritage, and the birthplace of their parents—Messina in Sicily, Italy. Together with Head Chef Donato Toce, the team has spent years experimenting with countless recipes and raw ingredients, in order to come up with our core range of 35 classic flavours. With the newest location opening in Hong Kong, Messina fans will find the full 40-flavour cabinet at every location, featuring 30 core flavours, 5 Hong Kong exclusives and 5 rotating specials.
In Hong Kong, gelato fans can look forward to locally-inspired flavour specials such as Hong Kong French Toast and Black Sesame Tong Yuen. Freshly churned daily from the creamiest milk, our superior scoop is all about celebrating authentic, artisanal Italian-style gelato the way it is meant to be.
OUR VERY OWN PRODUCTS
We have always championed using only the very best, real ingredients, and that starts from making all of our pastes, spreads, toppings and add-ons from scratch.
To fully control the quality of our raw ingredients, we embarked on a journey of growing our own hazelnuts and producing our own honey in Victoria, furthering our commitment to using the best raw ingredients for every single element in our gelato.
For everything else, we work with a handful of amazing suppliers, from our pistachios which come from Bronte in Italy, to our mangos sourced from Erskine Park, and cocoa butter and cocoa mass flown in from Ecuador.
Honey FARM
We’re now producing tonnes of the sweet stuff. Messina Honey is unadulterated, raw and cold pressed – direct from 100 active beehives in Numurkah, Victoria. The flavour will change seasonally as the flowers and plants transition.
CHOCOLATE
Messina’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.
HAZELNUT FARM
The nuts we currently buy are from Italy and are honed as the best in the world. But this variety does not grow very well in Australia and we wanted to grow our own so we could have more control over our gelato.
Dulce De Leche
It 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.
MADE FROM SCRATCH
Our philosophy is simple: If it’s not made from scratch, it isn’t the real deal. Everything that goes into our gelato, whether mixes, add-ins or pastes, is made using our own recipes and with the highest quality ingredients we can find: cookies, coulis, jams, pastes, brownies, meringues, you name it.
