Joyce, the chef at Paradise Gelato, knows her stuff. She studied at the Gelato University in Italy (yes, it does exist!) and then spent a year as a dessert chef in Paris. And the end product – fantastic. Super intense flavours created from all-natural ingredients by a skilled artisan maker.
Over the few short months since it opened in October 2018, we’ve been hearing glowing reports about Paradise from Jonah. Particularly about the gelateria’s signature flavour, kalamansi – a citrus fruit popular in South-East Asia.
Close to Cheltenham station, Paradise is a bright and cheery spot with loads of light streaming in through the front window. Inside, there is just the gelato cabinet and some small tables and stools. Perfect for chit-chat with Andy, our friendly server, who manages the gelateria and loves to talk about gelati.
All the gelati is made on-site fresh each day, based on top quality natural ingredients. For example, Paradise’s chocolate gelati – whether dark or milk – is made from the wonderful Callebaut couverture chocolate. Both dark and milk chocolate gelati were excellent, but as we are dark chocolate tragics, we prefer Paradise’s dark chocolate sorbetto to its milk chocolate gelato.
There are over 80 flavours in Paradise’s repertoire, with about a dozen flavours on each day’s menu. With such a compact menu, the daily selection is carefully curated to ensure a good mix of options, including dairy and non-dairy, which change every day. So you won’t see Paradise’s signature kalamansi available on the same day as lemon sorbetto. And pistachio is available only on Fridays.
Our day’s flavours: vanilla, mint choc chip, milk chocolate, and cookies and cream (all dairy); pistachio (because it was Friday), lemon, raspberry, pineapple, coconut and dark chocolate (all non-dairy). No kalamansi for us. We sampled them all.
The gelati is served in cups, cones or tubs to take away. Serving sizes are generous – the small size has two scoops, plenty large enough for me. Tubs of yesterday’s gelati – if there is any left over – are available at a discount.
Andy is rightly proud of Paradise’s non-dairy pistachio – the universally recognised benchmark test for quality gelato. At Paradise the best quality nuts are roasted and ground. The churned product has that lovely elasticity of great freshly made gelato. And with a rich creamy texture and intense nut flavour, the pistachio alone is worth a Friday visit to Paradise.
Of course I had to have this wonderful pistachio, which I paired with raspberry. The intense explosion of berries in the sorbetto was a perfect counterpoint for the pistachio. It was a tough choice between raspberry and lemon – the latter was also excellent.
Coconut – one of Benny’s favourite flavours – and dark chocolate is a great combination. Benny described the Paradise non-dairy coconut as one of the best he has tasted.
Jonah also picked the raspberry sorbetto, complemented with a beautiful vanilla gelato. And he took home two tubs of yesterday’s leftovers – dark chocolate and blood orange sorbetti.
Later that night, we sampled Jonah’s two tubs of gelati. Gelato is at its best when freshly made – the texture will gradually degrade over time. While the tubs weren’t quite as good as the freshly made product, I would be very happy to have a tub of yesterday’s gelato from Paradise in my freezer. Not that it would stay there for long.
Update: Sad news. Paradise Gelato closed in April 2020. We’ll be watching out for Joyce & Andy’s next venture.
Outstanding artisan-made gelati from a newcomer to Melbourne’s gelato scene. Fingers crossed that Paradise’s signature kalamansi gelato will be on the menu when we next visit!
Paradise Gelato
247 Charman Road
Cheltenham Vic 3192
T: 0478 033 663
W: www.facebook.com/paradisegelato7
