Piccolina opens a ninth Melbourne gelateria on Bourke Street
The new Piccolina Bourke Street store adds a gold-rush-themed fit-out and an eight-metre hand-painted glass menu board to the chain's ninth Melbourne site.
Piccolina opened its ninth Melbourne gelateria on September 30, taking over 68 Bourke Street with a gold ceiling and an eight-metre hand-painted menu board.
Founder Sandra Foti built the fit-out with designers Nick Cox of Projects of Imagination and March Studio around a nod to the 1850s gold rush, the period that built much of the laneway grid around it. Checkerboard terrazzo and fluted glass panels reference the Art Nouveau storefronts a few blocks over on Collins Street.
The menu board itself is assembled from 70 pieces of antique glass, painted by hand rather than printed, a detail that puts the shop closer to a 1930s milk bar than a chain outlet despite being Piccolina's ninth site.
I'm hoping we add another layer to what's already an incredible, historic precinct.
Flavours run the same core 17 as the other Piccolina stores, including a pistachio made with the gelateria's own nut butter and a stracciatella built on fior di latte with shards of dark chocolate, plus three flavours that rotate weekly. Opening week added a Bailey's cheesecake, a hedgehog slice flavour and a chewy peanut caramel.
"We're so privileged to be a part of the fold," Foti said of joining the Bourke Street precinct. "I'm hoping we add another layer to what's already an incredible, historic precinct."
A ninth site without losing the corner-shop feel
Growing to nine stores is the point where most dessert chains start to look identical from one shopfront to the next. Piccolina has gone the other way, giving Bourke Street its own design rather than a repeated template, the same approach that let Melbourne's dessert scene stay distinct street by street as it has grown.
Gelato cakes, including a bombe alaska and a tartufo, extend the format beyond the scoop counter, alongside frappes and takeaway tubs up to 1.5 litres for anyone stocking a freezer rather than eating on the spot.
Why the gold rush theme still sells in Melbourne
Melbourne's gold rush history gets reused constantly in local branding, from pub names to laneway murals, because it still reads as the city's founding story rather than a borrowed one. Piccolina's bet is that an eight-metre glass menu board earns more attention standing still than another scoop flavour would.
