Melbourne's best ice cream

Helados Jauja

Carlton

This new Argentinean ice-creamery sits amid the Ducatis and tourists lining Lygon. Their sticky dulce de leche (caramel make from sweetened milk) balanced with bitter-sweet dark chocolate chips is the best, but we like the weird gear – yerba mate tea tastes like green tea with a nutmeg edge and is almost savoury. They pile it high here, and, you can get an affogato to go – that’s a shot of espresso over your ice cream. Zing!

Jock’s

Albert Park

It’s not just the store’s proximity to the beach, or the fact that iceman Jock Main can faithfully translate any flavour into ice cream form, be it sweetcorn or beetroot, it’s the fun. Main bounces around handing out free tasters of house-favourite Hokey Pokey (vanilla, dotted through with sticky honeycomb) to all, young and old.

Gelobar

Brunswick East

It’s all about the super soft, almost stretchy blood orange sorbet at this Lygon Street favouite. It’s down the Brunswick end, so there are less tourists, but just as big of a queue. Go for the classics like chocolate –it’s so rich and dark it’s almost black – and the favourites like apple pie: sweet, toatsy and tasty as hell.

7Apples

St Kilda

Black and white check floors meet Red Bull flavour at Mark Mariotti’s old meets new school St Kilda gelateria. Prepare for a wait – the creamy Ferrero Rocher flavour has made this joint legendary, but we come for the fresh fruit sorbets. Load up on the tart apple, or passion fruit, and hit the beach. Quickly, this is fresh and melty.

Fritz Gelato

Various locations

We’re all about desserts imitating other desserts, and for that we love Fritz and their cinnamon doughnut flavour. Fritz has been scooping in Melbourne since 1952 and along with roasted almost gelati cones, you can pre-order cakes and tubs of fig ‘scream for private sessions at home.