Five of a kind: Classic ice-cream flavours

Rainbow

A short stroll to the beach, nö¨rdenfine does a roaring trade year round. With 34 flavours on offer from a rotating list of more than 100, none brings back childhood memories quite like the rainbow-coloured. The colours are vibrant but the flavour is toned down: not as sweet as bubblegum but with more tang and bite than vanilla. The cones are impressive, too - try waffle cones dipped in chocolate and 100s and 1000s, nuts or chunks of chocolate cookie.
nördenfine; 34 Bell Street, Torquay; 5261 5211.

Coffee

Massimo Bidin, the Italian behind the inventive gelato flavours at Spring Street Grocer, learnt his craft near Venice. Made fresh every day using natural ingredients, Bidin's milk and cream-based gelato include different sugars to add texture and a multi-tiered sweetness. Enter the classic espresso, a creamy fior di latte base to which is added shots of nutty espresso. The result is a deliciously adult gelato with a sweetly bitter bite and a gentle caffeine kick.
Spring Street Grocer, 157 Spring Street, city; 9639 0335.

Strawberry

Melbourne-born and Italian bred, Mark Mariotti went to Tuscany to learn the art of true gelato before opening his Acland Street store in 2001. The temple to icy sweetness has a rotating roster of 100 flavours, among them fresh fruit sorbets. Make a beeline for the strawberry, a blush pink scoop with a savoury sweetness given added textural depth by flecks of strawberry flesh. All flavours are seasonal and dependent on fruit availability.
7 Apples Gelato, 75 Acland Street, St Kilda; 9537 3633.

Vanilla

It was only after Caroline Simmons and Tim Marwood had forsaken the dream of running Tim's family farm around Timboon that they turned their thoughts to ice-cream. Of all their natural ice-creams, it's the pale yellow vanilla, flavoured with real vanilla bean, that really steals the show. While home base is the couple's whisky distillery and restaurant in Timboon, three ice-cream vans pop up at various events and tubs are for sale at selected stockists.
Timboon Fine Ice Cream; timboonfineicecream.com.au; 5595 0390.

Chocolate

Helados Jauja prove that it's not just Italians adept at making incredible ice-cream. Created by two South Americans, there are 24 flavours of helados at the Lygon Street shop, from dairy-free fruit sorbets to creamy ice-creams free from gelatine and preservatives. The cacao 80% is a rich, dark, smooth chocolate ice-cream made from milk, cream, eggs and 80% European couverture chocolate. It is delicious, matched only by a salted chocolate variety.
Helados Jauja; 254 Lygon Street, Carlton; 9041 2927.