Gelato Messina expands to Las Vegas

It started in the post-Olympics boom with a small shop in Darlinghurst before accelerating to cult gelato status, now Gelato Messina will take on the world, with Las Vegas its first port of call. Fresh from signing to open at Barangaroo, Messina owner Nick Pulumbo says the gelateria will gamble on Vegas with a late 2014 opening.

"We don't see ourselves having hundreds of stores. We aren't going in where all the gambling is."

It'll open in suburban Vegas where there's an underground food scene. If that goes well, we'd like to follow it up with a Brooklyn store. We see that as our spiritual home [in the US]," Palumbo says.

It isn't the first international foray for Messina. Good Food revealed last year that it had quietly dipped a toe in the China market, opening a store in the metropolis of Hangzhou.

"We're really pleased we opened there, if we'd done it in Shanghai it would've been a disaster," Palumbo says. The China experience offered a masterclass in taking the brand overseas, he says, providing lessons in exporting dairy products and respecting established food culture.

"The days of opening in China and expecting instant success are gone. You need to adapt to the local customer. We slightly lowered the sugar level, and where flavours like salted caramel are big over here, simpler things like choc chip vanilla work there," he says.

He also dismisses the low minimum wage as a drawcard in the US move.

"We're not after the sort of kid who works at a fast food store," he says.