Gelato Messina Marrickville - Messinaville — Restaurant in Sydney

Very impressive cult like following of delicious gelato. Well done Messina! From their website: Every flavour you see is made using a unique recipe created by us. We never, ever use pre-made bases or mass-produced flavour pastes. In each of our stores, you’ll find a 40 flavour cabinet, with 35 traditional flavours and 5 rotating weekly specials. We also make our own range of gelato cakes which can be picked up or ordered from any store. They’re weird and wonderful, but it’s all in the name of putting a smile on someone’s face. We are equally obsessed with the quality of the gelato as we are with the origin of the ingredients. So much so that we even have our own dairy farm that supplies us with super creamy jersey milk; We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can do things better. From the outset, we’ve strived to make just about every component that goes into our gelato, sourcing the best ingredients we can find. We’ve always made our gelato from scratch using our own unique recipes, whilst baking, making and creating all of our own ‘additions’ or inclusions like cookies, brownies, coulis, jams and meringues. In 2016, we got to thinking – what if we could take it one step further and actually control the quality of some of the raw ingredients that we use? What if we actually became primary producers of some of these key ingredients? It started as a bit of a pipe dream but we are very proud to say it has now become a (partial) reality.A Hazelnut Farm in Seymour (VICTORIA), a Strawberry farm in Dural (NSW), and one of our most exciting ventures to date is the acquisition of our own Dairy Farm in Numurkah (VICTORIA). Not only do we now produce our own milk. We produce one of the highest quality Jersey milks we’ve ever come across. arguably the highest quality milk you can get. We don’t just buy the best chocolate we can find, we actually make it ourselves using the highest quality single origin Ecuadorian cacao we can get our hands on. "There's no point putting in a lot of something that's average because you're just going to get average. Put in a lot of something that's really good, you're gonna get great" - Donato Toce,...

Extremely poor service

This was my first time ever at a messina and after hearing the hype I was deeply dissapointed. After waiting for 10mins while the staff had a casual conversation with the customer infront of me, she finally asked someone else to serve, when I get seen I ask for 2 of the tiny scoops in 1 container, and get told no, when asked why their answer was "we dont do that" okay, sure, so I asked if I could still just get them separately and was once again told no, I was baffled why I wasn't able to purchase 2 separate flavours at all for whatever reason, and when trying to understand why my request was being denied the staff were blunt, rude and dismissive.

I went back a separate time for a coffee and asked if it could be made in my keep cup, the server was unsure and asked me to wait while she checked, which was fine until instead of checking she continued to serve all of the other customers behind me first. I told her its 100% okay if its just made normally i can transfer it myself if its an issue and I just got stared at, but couldnt leave since I had already paid.

Overall an incredibly uncomfortable and...

The cafe has a lovely, spacious seating area and offers beautifully presented, delicious pastries. The coffees taste great. However, the overall experience was let down by the lack of staff training and attentiveness.

We ordered a flat white and an oat flat white to have in, but both were served in takeaway cups, and one ended up being more of a latte with thick froth—far from what we expected.

Later, while we briefly stepped away to grab another pastry, leaving our belongings, half-full coffee, and some food at the table, the staff unexpectedly cleared everything. It wasn’t busy at the time, and there was no need to turn over the table quickly, so it felt unnecessarily rushed and inconsiderate.

It’s especially disappointing considering this is the headquarters location—you'd expect the standard of service here to set the benchmark. It’s a shame that Messina hasn’t invested more in properly training their team, or at least ensuring there’s one experienced staff member managing the floor. The food and coffee show promise, but the hospitality side definitely needs...