Just open: Gelato Messina and Porteno team-up for Sydney Festival 2015

Sometimes a collaboration is so perfect, you wonder why it took so long to happen. Kind of like when Monica and Chandler got together on Friends

Open for lunch and dinner from January 8-25 (closed Mondays) at the Hyde Park Festival Village, Double Down Diner will be there to catch us as we fall from the heights of our New Year's resolutions.

"We like what they do, they like what we do," says Gelato Messina's co-director Declan Lee of the collaboration. "Porteno does simple, good-quality food and that's what we're into as well, so it just felt like the right fit."

Porteno's Ben Milgate and Elvis Abrahanowicz will offer their take on 14 classic American dishes ($10–$15), including chilli dogs, chicken and waffles, Philly cheese steak, maple, bacon and pumpkin pie and a Reuben sandwich.

The boys will be there most days, except when they're taking their new mobile barbecue truck (built in a 1954 Chevy) for a spin – starting on Saturday January 10 in the Domain.

For dessert, double down with one of five Gelato Messina creations, including Not Chicken and Waffles (maple and pecan gelato masquerading as a chicken drumstick on a Belgian waffle with whisky caramel "gravy", $10) and The Nutty Piefesser pie (peanut-butter biscuit base layered with peanut custard, vanilla gelato, peanut crunch and whipped cream, $8).

There's also a house-made creaming soda spider ($6) and two thick shakes, including the pretzel and salted malt shake ($8).

This year's Sydney Festival is going to be a delicious one.

sydneyfestival.com.au