N2 Extreme Gelato on Urbanspoon
Melbourne has the finest places to eat, hands down. I don’t really recall any experience where I didn’t enjoy the food. The servings are big, the flavors are intense (in a good way) like it does a happy dance in your mouth and most importantly, they’re different. Speaking of different, this gelati place has been making rounds in social media because they’re a) using a chemical compound found in the periodic table b) surprisingly really good c) Instagram worthy.

If you still haven’t guessed what I’m talking about (lol just in case you missed the blog post title *wink), it’s N2 Extreme Gelato!

N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne menu

A quick background about them.
A maddening bunch, cream-puff-crazy over creating flavours that have only existed in the collective imaginations of the Nasalis Larvatus. They don’t do skinny, fat free desserts (get some I-feel-so-delusionally-healthy-eating-powder-made-frozen-desserts-served-with-oh-so-cute-toppings for those). They source their full cream milk and fresh cream from local dairies, use real fruits, fresh herbs, weird and wacky ingredients they stumble across in their made to order gelato and sorbet.

N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne menu

Fun fact, they use Liquid Nitrogen. Why? There is a truckload of science behind it. But first, you need to understand Ice Cream Gelato, it is a cross breed of art and science creating a microstructure of ice crystals, air bubbles, fat droplets and a viscous solutions of sugars, polysaccharides and milk proteins. It involves physical chemistry, food science, colloid science, chemical engineering, microscopy, materials science and ultimately consumer science. The use of liquid nitrogen at N2 Extreme Gelato plays on the strength of a phenomenon called nucleation-dominated ice crystallisation, it forms a large number of microscopic ice crystals in seconds, resulting in exceptionally smooth textures. (Clarke, C 2012, The Science of Ice Cream 2nd Edition) This also means they are able to make gelato on order and serve it at that perfect temperature of -6C. Freshness guaranteed.

N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne menu
Is Liquid nitrogen safe? Yes. Nitrogen is non-toxic, non-flammable and it constitutes 78.09% of the earth’s atmosphere. Liquid nitrogen boils off when it comes in contact with anything warmer than itself (the boiling point of liquid nitrogen is -196C), they guarantee its completely evaporated by the time its in your cup. Safety is priority and they do have rigorous safety procedures and training in place to keep everyone safe.
source http://n2extremegelato.com.au/

I swear, the moment I saw it on my Instagram feed and read about them, I knew we had to get one for ourselves. So off we went to Fitrzroy to track down their infamous gelati.

N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne menu
I wasn’t able to take a photo while our orders were getting done. I was too amazed but for your reference, it looks like this:
n2 extreme gelato melbourne
img src: http://www.goodfood.com.au/
Pretty cool right?
N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne review

N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne7
My boyfriend and I were talking how the place looks like a tattoo shop because of the wall art. What do you think?
N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne review
A little history and FAQs on the wall.
N2 Extreme Gelato Melbourne review
Black Velvet Cupcake $8
Brokeback Moment $8

Observation/Verdict
Menu is written on a chalkboard type wall.
It wasn’t a busy day when we went. It was days prior the Melbourne cup.
Preparation was very impressive.
Just the right amount of sweetness but it doesn’t compromise the flavors.
Liquid nitrogen helped with the gelati texture.

Will I come back? Definitely.