Gelato Messina | Las Vegas

passion-fruit-gelato

Rob and I love going out for a sweet treat after dinner and one of our favorite dessert destinations is Gelato Messina in Downtown Summerlin. We first stumbled upon it during their pre-opening party and were hooked! We recently went back on a hot Vegas day to cool down with more of the fresh flavors.

gelato-affogato

I’m a big coffee fan (I am from Seattle after all), so I was excited to try their affogato. The Dulce de Leche gelato went perfectly with the shot of espresso. Forget iced coffee for summer, I want to get my caffeine fix from this every day! The partially melted gelato was so good. Plus, Rob hates coffee, so I got it all to myself :)

gelato-float

We also tried some fruit flavors and loved the passion fruit paired with mango—so refreshing! All of their gelato recipes use fresh ingredients and aren’t made with artificial flavoring, which we could really tell. The chef adds the fruit towards the end so that it is never fully cooked in order to maintain the freshness.

gelato-messina

They also make the pastries for each flavor in house. We sampled the shortbread that they use as the crust in the cheesecake flavor and it was amazing just by itself! In addition to the gelato flavors, the chefs also make a variety of gelato cakes. The amount of precision that goes into making these is amazing! It takes a couple of days to make each one because there are multiple layers that need to be at the right temperature when assembling to make sure it doesn’t melt. They taste as good as they look.

gelato-messina-cake

gelato-menu{They have a rotating menu of specialty flavors. When we visited they had a flavor in honor of Nepal and would donate all sales from that flavor to earthquake relief efforts.}

messina-mural{Gelato Messina is originally from Australia and this is their first US location. Each store has a customized mural by Jeremyville that is specific to the location. This store has the Summerlin sign, Elvis, El Cortez and other Vegas-specific details.}

empty-gelato{This is all that’s left after visiting.}