Venice Gelato Cafe

What did you have for dessert last night? Well, I had a scoop of blood orange and chocolate chip gelato from Venice. I was skeptical when I asked the lady if I could try that flavor, but one taste and I was in love. It was flavorful, refreshing, tangy and chocolaty at the same time. I used to work in Newstead, so the Valley was once my usual hangout and I frequented this little gelato shop. I’ve tried the more common flavors like chocolate, coffee, and mint chocolate chip, and I’ve tried the crazier flavors like Turkish delight and cream cookie (it’s like vanilla cookie dough) and I loved them all. At $ 3.90 a scoop (they do generous scoops too), you cannot regret trying out their unique flavors. The seating area is tiny, but it’s barely ever crowded. I’d say, perfect location for a date or hanging out with your BFFs.

Amidst Fortitude Valley’s Chinatown delights shines Venice Gelato Café which offers passers by cheap and respectable gelato. Ferraro Rocher, Honeycomb, Butter Cookie are just some of the flavours that will roll of your tongue and with any luck melt in your mouth. While not the most amazing gelato experience it is a decent effort in a precinct dominated by Chinese-​inspired restaurants. Kudos to the owners trying something new in an established dining strip.

Gelato is always pretty good. Venice in Chinatown Mall doesn’t quite have the texture of my favourite gelatos, but the flavours are good, the location is convenient, and the service is friendly. I went on a Sunday night after dinner and the place was buzzing, which was good to see. There’s a range of dairy gelatos as well as several sorbets. The staff are happy for customers to taste test before they order, which is always a good thing. My Ferrero Rocher scoop was pretty huge, for gelato, and was more than enough (and great value at $ 3.50). My companion’s green apple scoop was a little too sweet for my liking, but refreshing and authentically flavoured. Not my favourite gelato café in the Valley, but a great option if you’re in Chinatown Mall and looking for a cheap and delicious dessert.

I’m picky when it comes to gelato, especially in regards to flavour and consistency; I find a lot of the time the ice cream either melts too quickly, or tastes too artificial.
Venice Gelato Café is fantastic — the ice cream and sorbet varieties are delicious. On my first trip there I tried the lemon sorbet, which was very refreshing but a little too acidic. And on my second trip there I went with the mint choc chip. Mint choc chip is a difficult flavour to get right; either the choc chips are too large and half freeze, making the chocolate flavourless and chunky, or the mint flavour is too overwhelming and you can’t taste any of the cream. Venice Gelate Café makes the best mint choc chip ice cream I’ve had in a long while — the chips were shaved very finely and melted in my mouth.
The staff are also lovely. They were more than happy to let my Mum sample more than 5 flavours and never seemed impatient! She was tempted to order one of the sundaes — mainly because of the great assortment of vintage bowls and cups behind the counter — but ended up with a scoop of lychee ice cream, which was smooth and light.
Pick up a cone or cup after dinner and take a stroll around Chinatown, or if you’re up for a post-​dinner chat, pull up a chair at one of the many tables set up outside the café and make it a meal with coffee or tea.

After dinner in Chinatown one night, my friends and I couldn’t resist some gelato at the conveniently located gelataria right in the middle of the mall. Two of my friends had quite a hilarious number of tastings before finally making the very big decision of what to order. The staff were obliging and happily gave them tiny scoop after tiny scoop.
The first flavour the girls tried was called butter cookie (or something very similar) and they told me to stay well away, so consider yourself warned. I had chocolate and strawberry cheesecake. The serves were very generous; I need not have ordered two scoops (a sentiment my friends echoed). It was good (of course, it’s gelato!), but not the best I’ve ever had.