Highett Gelato & Desserts — Restaurant in Melbourne

I would give it zero stars if I could.

This is particularly for people who have allergies thinking about buying an ice cream.

The good: They have a section of just gelato with a seperate ice cream scoop and apparently make all ice cream on site, reducing risk but they still have many nuts on ice creams so cross contamination is possible. Also the gelato section was right next to ice cream with nuts all sprinkled on top, leading high chance of cross contamination.

The rudeness and ugliness: I went it to buy a gelato for my son who has some tree nut allergies like walnut, pecan, macadamia and sesame seeds. When I first asked the question to the owners wife she was assuring me of their process which was nice but when I said could we have a scoop to be taken from the front of the half empty gelato tray where it was untouched she flatly refused. This is the first time in 6 years living in Melb travelling across the country and internationally we have had anyone refuse the request and many would even grab an untouched tray from the freezer. I was in disbelief. I was trying to understand why that was an issue and her explanation was that it would ruin her display.

This women held her own desire of having perfect wavy ice cream on half an eaten tray than her customers desire to reduce their anxiety when trying to get ice cream for their anaphylactic 6 year old son.

She even told me she preferred that I leave with my 6 year old and 8 year old than serve me. I literally had my head in my hands in utter disbelief until her husband told her to do it, to which I was grateful. But then her husband then started telling me no other gelato place would have extra trays if made on site, and would argue with me about that, then when I told him how serious my son allergies are he told me that I shouldn’t be there, so I am assuming I should lock my son in a house and never leave. I was just shocked.

Then when I asked for a sugar waffle cone (made with flour and brown sugar) the wife started challenging me about the the potential for nuts when we have had sugar cones for years without any problems. Again these comments were given without any knowledge of our sons allergies.

Learning: I hope the owner and his wife can read this review and learn about having empathy for the parents of children that could die from nuts if not treated. Imagine for the rest of your life every time you went out for food or lunch or dinner you have check with the kitchen about what’s in it, what cutting boards are being used, are the chips deep drifted with other crumbed things, can we get a clean knife or board.

When we do ask we get a range of replies where some people don’t care, some do but are annoying and the best are those that have empathy, listen, help and accomodate in a small way if possible. We would love our child to have as normal upbringing as possible but it is a stress in our life and challenging everyday. So when someone says that don’t want to do something because it affect the wave of their gelato, this is just the lowest of the low.

So my advice if you want to buy ice cream from this place know unless you do it their way you will be met with condemnations, accusations and told to leave the premises if you affect the gelato...

‼️ MUST TRY DESSERT PLACE ‼️

Fresko is a dessert shop located in Highett Shopping Centre which serves Gelato, Waffle, Lokumades and more! 😋

We got: 🍨 Coffee (Frappe) gelato Honestly their gelato was some of the best we’ve ever tasted 🤩 Most of the flavor options were incredibly unique AND their gelato is always made fresh in the morning! This coffee gelato was one of my favorite flavors as I couldn’t resist that delicious coffee taste & aroma, we could tell they used high quality ingredients ✨

🧇 Pavlova Waffle with Lemon Meringue gelato Who doesn’t want pavlova on a waffle?! This dessert was definitely our #1 bcs each item in this dish worked together perfectly. The freshly hot cooked & soft waffle, crunchy texture of pavlova bits, the sweetness of the strawberries and the sweet & tangy flavor from Lemon Meringue were just out of this world! 🤤

🍩 Loukumades Traditional flavor & Nutella flavor These were just excellent! 👌🏻 Every bite was full of flavor & the soft texture of the lokumades was to die for 🥰 They’re very generous with the toppings so no bite will be missing those delicious flavors!

🍔 Red Velvet White Chocolate gelato panini Have you ever heard of Gelato Panini before?! Cause this was the first time we ever heard of it ‼️ Such a genius creation and we can see this would be so popular in the summer ☀️ The warm brioche bun combined with the cold gelato in the summer heat would be an absolute delight 🤯 Btw this gelato flavor was another one of my fave too!

Overall, everything we had here exceeded our expectation ‼️ We LOVED every single bite we had. Nekta and Gerry were such awesome people and we really loved chatting with them, especially learning about their family history of ice cream makers🍦

Whether you’re a local or not, you definitely have to try any of their desserts! We guarantee you’ll be obsessed and keep wanting more...

We were at Oakleigh on the 12 the of April for lunch, we took a stroll to see the shops at Monastiraki. We were excited to see a mini version of your shop. My granddaughter was excited to have an ice cream. I noticed the young lady was setting up, putting the ice cream trays in the display unit and decided to walk through the shops to give her more time. When we came back it was all set up so we waited for the young lady to serve us but she informed us she will be a few more minutes. We waited while she washed her hands, waited for her to do her hair, which was longer than washing her hands, still with no hurry whatsoever. We left in the end with no ice cream much to my my granddaughter's disappointment. All we wanted was some acknowledgement of how much longer we were to wait. Perhaps it was because she was young and inexperienced on customer service. Very...