Cafes

Spring Street Grocery

1/24/2013 10:35:00 PM

Large cup: Blood plum, hazelnut, chocolate, mango/passionfruit - $7.50

Spring Street Grocery
157 Spring Street
Melbourne, VIC 3000
Ph: (03) 9662-1520
Spring St Grocery on Urbanspoon

I love ice-cream. I mean, I seriously love ice-cream. I love eating it, I love talking about it, I love making it. (Remember the Ice-Cream Party and the Ice-Cream Sundae project?) I love all types of ice-cream - cheap and nasty home-brand vanilla, sickly sweet American-style ice-creams studded with pieces of candy and ribboned with fudge, but most of all: I love proper Italian gelato.

The very first time I went to Europe, on a 6-week backpacking jaunt as a bright-eyed twenty year old, I hadn't even planned to include Italy on my itinerary - but a few months before the trip, an issue of Vogue Entertaining and Travel came out with a feature on Sicilian gelato. I thought to myself: "I've made a huge mistake!", enrolled myself in Italian classes and rearranged my itinerary so that a third of my trip was spent eating my way across la bella Italia. Best decision ever!

Flash forward to the present - I was incredibly excited when I saw this tweet from Alan Campion, sharing the address of a new artisan gelateria (and soon to be fancy-schmancy grocery store) on Spring Street.

We've visited twice now, and I totally love it! They make absolutely excellent Italian-style gelati and sorbets, with a mixture of classic and adventurous flavours that seem to rotate regularly. It is literally the best gelato I have ever had in Australia, and even better than a lot of the gelati I've had in Italy and other parts of Europe. I've been blabbing on endlessly about it to my friends and family - and now, I'm sharing it with you. (The below photos were taken on two separate visits with friends - I didn't eat all that gelato to myself!)
Spring Street Grocery

Flavours

I must admit, on my first visit I was a bit shocked at the prices - $6.50 for a medium, for which you get up to three flavours in a rather small looking cup - however, you can really taste the quality of the ingredients. They're also quite rich and intensely flavoured, so they're definitely satisfying. (Sometimes I feel the medium is actually too much!) Totally worth it. Visit, visit now!

Medium cone: Banana/date, salted caramel and chocolate, fior di latte - $6.50
The salted caramel/chocolate flavour was a great one - it looked like choc chip/stracciatella, but the ice-cream base itself was infused with a salted caramel flavour.

I couldn't resist ordering an espresso to make an impromptu affogato with the fior di latte gelato in the bottom of my cone. (N.B. fior di latte is a milk flavour, not mozzarella gelato!)
Impromptu affogato - $3.50 for the espresso
Medium cup: Watermelon/mint, turmeric/cardamom/pistachio, fior di latte - $6.50
The turmeric/cardamom/pistachio is an unusual one, but very delicious. It's a favourite amongst my friends!

Medium cone: Chocolate, salted caramel/chocolate - $6.50

Large cup: Chocolate, hazelnut, cinnamon/pear/pinenut, coffee - $7.50
My favourite of all the flavours has to be the hazelnut - it has such a pure, intense hazelnut flavour! After I Instagrammed it, I got a comment from their Operations Manager, saying: "glad you loved them! We changed the hazelnut today to a batch of hazelnuts sourced from a small harvest in Piedmont. Such a richer flavour." Pretty cool, huh?

Medium cup: Peach/apricot, hazelnut, chocolate - $6.50
Argh, they're all so, so very good! You know where I'll be all summer...!

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8 comments

  1. Best ice-cream in Australia. I don't like ice-cream here (as you know), it just tastes...wrong. Especially having grown up with one of the best ice-cream places in Germany (I swear it's a total accident that the nephew of the owner became my best friend.. totally..).

    Anywho..

    This ice-cream is seriously good. The chocolate tastes like the chocolate at home. Can we go again? Like, now?

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  2. ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT!!

    I'm the opposite of you; ice cream is rarely something I crave nor have interest in making, but in Florence I fell in love with gelato and had it multiple times every day. This place looks wondrous. Do they do licorice gelato? My kingdom for licorice gelato!

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  3. Sekai Photography - Yes. Yes we can!!

    Hannah - Yay! I love Arrested Development too! They DO have licorice gelato as one of their rotating flavours, you must try if you come to Melbourne again!

    xox Sarah

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  4. What a great find! And a good gelato place is a thing to be treasured, especially in this hot weather! :)

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  5. Just wanted to say that I enjoy your blog Sarah! I tried the chocolate, cardamon/tumeric/pistachio and plum/saba flavours yesterday. So good, especially the plum + saba!

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  6. Just wanted to say I enjoy your blog Sarah. I tried the Chocolate, Cardamon+Tumeric+Pistachio and Plum+Saba flavours yesterday. So good, especially the plum + saba!

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  7. Oh man. I'm ALL about the ice-cream. And sorbet. And gelato. Need to visit! Love that the hazelnuts were local! :)

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  8. Wow it looks so damn good! I love how you are always able to find these new joints! I 've been away so I had no idea that an ice-cream place had opened up on Spring St :)

    I wanna gooooooooooo!

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