Bella Gelati

We meet the owner of Bella Gelati, John Duncan, who shows us around his Pizza and Gelato cafe, and shows us his collection of famous homemade Gelato. He shows us what's involved in making Gelato and what he loves about making it! He shares just what motivated him to transfer from being a mechanic to creating Gelato!

About John:

John Duncan was a mechanic and a petrol station owner before he started making Gelato. He travelled to Italy and with some friends went to Gelato trade shows and learnt the traditional Italian way of making Gelato.

He imported the traditional machines and uses traditional flavourings and ingredients and he says "The only thing that's not Italian is the milk, sugar and me". There are milk and fruit based gGlatos and it takes approximately 1 1/2 hours to make a particular flavour which is a highly mechanised process - although there is ingredient measuring and initial preparation that is done by hand.

He makes everything on site at his cafe / restaurant and he is becoming famous for his more unusual flavour combinations, such as marscapone and blueberry, Tim Tim, ginger and rum and raisin.

Because the Gelato is made from milk not cream like regular ice-cream the nutrition claim is that the Gelato John makes is 34% less fat. John has also reduced the sugar content by 10- 15%. On the shop wall is the nutritional index of the Gelato flavours for the local health conscience clientele.

John says that he is an artisan and he definitely does not make much money out of his product mainly due to the fact that to make Gelato is so labour intensive.

But he loves it and his new love, pizza making. John has attended short courses at Ryde TAFE and trade fairs to train himself up in the Italian food business but says that there is no specific course out there that teaches Gelato making. It is a labour of love.

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