For every flavour, a story to tell

May 14, 2021 | News

At Island Gelato, we build our flavours from the ground up, and through this process each flavour develops its own unique story. Here’s how we turn flavours into masterpieces.

We like to say that gelato is the chef’s ice cream. Gelato uses more milk than cream, meaning it has a lower fat content. In ice cream, this fat coats the palate and masks the flavours. In gelato, the flavours don’t have anywhere to hide.

That’s why we hire qualified pâtissiers — trained pastry chefs with a proven record for building and balancing flavours. Our team has to consider every level of the gelato, just as they would consider a whole plate of dessert. We look at every layer, from the creamy to the crunchy and ensure everything is harmonious.

Knowing that every layer of the gelato needs to stand on its own and support the whole, we choose the best ingredients possible. Often this means building partnerships with orchards and growers right here on Waiheke, or sourcing the best available products such as Belgium chocolate.

With the ingredients sourced, our pâtissiers can begin their creative process. This is where the magic happens and flavours start to develop their own unique stories.

The journey: Gin, grapefruit and yuzu

Our gin, grapefruit and yuzu sorbet is a winter flavour, but not everyone knows the story behind it.

We developed this sorbet with Elemental Distillery, makers of the award-winning Roots Dry Gin. In producing the Roots gin, Elemental uses the peel and flesh of Twisted Citrus grapefruit from Gisborne.

The leftover fruit and juice could have easily been wasted. Through our partnership, we were able to acquire the juice and infuse it with a range of aromatics to create our beloved sorbet.

The result is a perfectly balanced grapefruit sorbet infused with juniper, Hawke’s Bay coriander seed and Motueka beer hops. This sorbet is the product of innovative collaboration, a passion for reducing waste and building incredible flavour experiences.

Be sure to stop by your nearest Island Gelato scoop shop this winter for a chance to share in the story of this sorbet, and our many other flavours.

What it means to be on the Island Gelato team

Mar 31, 2021 | News

At Island Gelato Co, our people provide the passion. That means everything we do is fueled by the amazing energy our team brings to work every day. From our chefs to our scoopers, everyone is part of the Island Gelato Co family, and contributes to the quality experience we bring you with every scoop.

We’re dedicated to serving up an awesome experience whenever you stop by an Island Gelato scoop shop. To that end, we’re building the best team we can. Here’s what we look for in our Island Gelato team, and what it means for you as our customer.

Island Gelato people are empowered

We’re here to serve you scoops with a smile, and that means we do our best to ensure our team is empowered.

To us, empowerment means having the training and supportive environment to be your whole self and perform with confidence and competence. Everyone on our team brings their ‘A’ game and expertise with them to work .

Island Gelato people are passionate

We’re all about creativity at Island Gelato Co, and where else does creativity come from if not passion?

We want our team to be passionate about hospitality, gelato and serving up smiles. To us, being passionate means showing a genuine interest in our products, customers and in-store experiences. Our team are enthusiastic about helping you, and share your excitement for our flavours.

Island Gelato people value relationships

Finally, we want our team to value and respect each other.

This means looking out for each other, picking up if someone stumbles and understanding we’re all in this together. Valuing relationships, to us, means sharing a rapport and bringing a lively social energy to the workplace. It means being considerate of one another and taking responsibility for our own actions and how they impact others.

This extends to our customers too — Island Gelato people value every customer who walks through the door, and engage with a genuine interest. We want you to feel at home in our store, and that means caring about who you are.

It’s not just our massive selection of creative, delicious and unique flavours that makes Island Gelato stand out. It’s also our people and their commitment to bringing you the best experience possible every time you come into an Island Gelato Co store.

So what are you waiting for? It’s Island Gelato time — see you in-store!

Why more is more with Island Gelato flavour combos

Feb 19, 2021 | News

The old saying goes “less is more”. That might be true when choosing fonts for a presentation, but when it comes to picking your flavours at Island Gelato more means more.

We make sure to use top quality ingredients in every scoop and craft our flavours to sing even louder when they’re enjoyed together. Mix and match your favourite flavours for the best Island Gelato experience this summer.

The best flavour combo: Summer and Island Gelato

Some things in life just fit together naturally, like peanut butter and jam, wine and cheese or summer and fresh fruit!

At Island Gelato, we take that fresh seasonal fruit and turn it up to eleven, making stunning sorbets and gelatos. The quality of locally-grown produce makes a real difference to the flavour and feel of our creations, meaning you won’t find sorbet or gelato quite like ours anywhere else.

A lot of the produce we use, from apples to plums and even shiso, comes right from our backyard on Waiheke Island. So we can trace our creations back to the seed, and treat every piece of fruit with love and respect — no nasty chemicals, handpicked and served from farm to table.

Everything we don’t grow, such as our oranges, vanilla, chocolate and milk, comes from the best sources across the globe, so you can be sure all of our flavours are world class.

With every flavour, we work hard to figure out what combos make the best tasting treats — like lime and basil, or strawberry and balsamic. But one of the best parts about choosing your scoops at one of our Island Gelato shops is finding new flavour combinations we haven’t tried yet.

Try these scrumptious scoop combos

• Pineapple Mojito Sorbet with Coconut and Kaffir Lime
• Waiheke Black Doris plum with yogurt lemon thyme shortbread.
• Whiskey and chocolate, burnt caramel coconut and coffee affogato.

Grab a scoop of our pineapple mojito sorbet with coconut and kaffir lime for an extra bright, summery cocktail.

Or pair our uniquely Kiwi Waiheke Black Doris plum sorbet, with its deep robust sweetness, with yogurt lemon thyme shortbread to cut through the sweetness with tart bursts of flavour.

If you’re in the mood for something a little deeper and darker, try a triple scoop with whiskey and chocolate, our burnt caramel coconut, and coffee affogato.

We have over 70 flavours on rotation across our Waiheke, Auckland CBD and Newmarket locations, so there’s always new combinations to try.

Next time you’re out and about — or even making a special trip, just for us — don’t just stop at one flavour. Find your personal flavour combo at Island Gelato.

5 reasons to love Island Gelato

Dec 16, 2020 | News

Right off the bat there’s something you should know there are so many more than five reasons to love us. Today we’re going to tell you a little story about five things we love. Five things that help make our gelato what it is and keep our customers coming back for more.

“They’re gonna tell us about five different flavours, right?” Ha ha, no! We’re going to tell you about five different ingredients that make our authentic gelato unique and delicious. It’s important to us that we offer our customers the best product we can, and we can only do that because….

1. We use top quality organic Jersey milk

As you might remember from our article “What’s the difference between ice cream and gelato?” gelato starts with a milk base. To get the best quality gelato, you have to start with the best quality milk. Our Jersey milk comes from Jersey Girl Organics, an award winning, sustainability focused, certified organic dairy farm based in Matamata.

The cows, known as the Jersey Girls, produce milk of an outstanding quality. But what makes this milk better than what you might get at the dairy? Above all else, it’s the rich taste and incredible texture that lends itself particularly well to the artisanal gelato making process. But this milk is also better for you, with 30% more protein and 25% more calcium. Plus, it’s completely free of the harmful chemicals that frequently contaminate milk produced through non-organic farming practices.

We love Jersey Girl Organics, not just for the superior milk, but for the way they respect the environment and treat the Jersey Girls with love and respect.

2. The vanilla bean we use is the best in the world

We use 100% pure Tahitian vanilla bean, regarded by many to be the best in the world and a long-time staple of Europe’s most upmarket kitchens. The flavour and pungency are truly second to none, and this is what gives our Vanilla Bean flavour it’s signature taste. And why it’s such a popular option in our stores.

Sometimes the best is just the best and that’s it. But there’s more to it, of course. Growing vanilla is very labour intensive, and vanilla of this quality only grows very close to the equator. As a product we can’t grow ourselves, it’s important to us that it’s attained in a non-exploitative way. Ours comes to New Zealand via Equagold, who have made a commitment to the communities who produce the vanilla to engage in fair trade.

What works for these communities also works for us, and the result is a Vanilla Bean gelato that’s out of this world.

3. Couverture chocolate is… it’s… it can’t be expressed with words

But that won’t stop us trying! Let’s see. It’s considered to be of a very high-quality for two key reasons. The first is the increased percentage of cocoa butter – couverture chocolate has around 35%, compared to roughly 15% in your standard milk chocolate bar, this makes it considerably richer and tastier. Secondly, couverture goes through a far more intensive tempering process. Tempering is essentially stabilising the chocolate, giving it a smooth consistency that’s absolutely ideal for pouring over a cup of gelato from our chocolate fountain.

Our couverture chocolate comes from Belgium, the chocolate capital of the world. Due to the artisanal chocolate making processes and the accumulated industry knowledge, the quality of Belgian chocolate just can’t be matched by mass-produced alternatives here in New Zealand. This is chocolate that is perfectly smooth when liquid, with just the right firmness when solid, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

4. We grow a lot of ingredients ourselves on Waiheke Island

We’re Waiheke Island locals, it’s where we started Island Gelato and we still grow a lot of our produce there. Apples, plums, shiso, summer peach, kaffir lime, and feijoas, this delightful produce all comes from our own backyard. The beauty is, we know everything’s grown without the aid of scary chemicals and we can hand pick each fruit, leaf, and stem to make sure only the best picks make it to our kitchen.

Waiheke is home to some incredible vineyards, and it’s no secret that the soil composition is responsible for some of the finest local drops. With Waiheke wines being sold throughout New Zealand and the world, we think the products of our garden and orchard are right up there in esteemed company.

5. The citrus we use is grown with love

We get our oranges and mandarins from Twisted Citrus, a Gisborne-based orchard that rose to prominence by producing oranges of the juiciest variety and getting them out to their customers with a distribution model that favours freshness. Fruit is picked to order and delivered fresh to our kitchen, there’s no storage, no processing, no waxing and no refrigeration. When they arrive, they are bursting with flavour and fragrance, straight off the tree.

We love Twisted Citrus because there’s no sacrifice on quality. The only way we could source fresher oranges and mandarins would be to grow a few trees right outside the Island Gelato kitchen. Even then, we’d be hard pressed to produce anything that would rival the sweet, perfectly balanced and extraordinarily juicy fruit we get from Twisted Citrus and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?

So, there you have it, whether it’s the milk used in all of our dairy-based flavours, or a little something that gives an individual flavour it’s unique charm – every ingredient we use is the best we can get our hands on. Quality is a compromise we’ll never make, and we’re quietly confident you’ll be able to taste the results.