Gelato Messina X Brix Distillers Degustation

Overview

Messina's never-ending love affair with collabs has hit a new high. The Messina Creative Department's head chef Remi Talbot has teamed up with Brix Distillers' head chef Ivan Sanchez (Bodega, Porteño) and head bartender Jai Lyons to create an eight-course gelato degustation menu. It'll all go down on March 8–9, when Messina takes over the Bourke Street distillery — winner of the Best New Bar: People's Choice at Concrete Playground's Best of 2018 Awards.

The two chefs have combined their Colombian and Japanese/French influences with this one. Expect smoked crisp-skinned duck breast with dark chocolate mole gelato and fois gras-filled turnips; mud crab and abalone with fermented shiitake mushrooms, white garlic gelato and roti bread; and, for dessert, a spiced and smoked molasses gelato with fermented pineapple reduction in a buckwheat cone.

To pair with each course, Lyons has created eight rum cocktails. The duck breast will be paired with a chocolate and coffee negroni using barrel-aged rum; the mud crab served alongside a rosemary-infused white daiquiri with ginger kombucha float; and the molasses gelato cone gets a spiced rum, pineapple vinegar, lime and cinnamon smoke concoction.

There will be two sittings on each night at 6pm and 8.30pm, with groups of 2–12 welcome. It's definitely a pricey dinner at at $210 a pop — but, if you have the extra cash to splash, we reckon this one will be well worth it.