i-Creamy Artisan Gelato offers some of the most delicious ice-cream in Sydney, but it’s not their award-winning creations or the predominantly Asian flavors that set them apart from the competition. It’s the way they serve their ice-cream that has everyone talking about i-Creamy and their beautiful gelato flowers.

Who wants gelato scoops pressed onto a crunchy cone when you can feast on a delicious ice-cream flower instead? Judging by the crowd lining up outside the i-Creamy Artisan Gelato, in Sydney’s Central Business District, even on cold winter nights, and the popularity of i-Creamy’s Instagram page, nobody! Sure, turning an ice-cream into a work of art takes a bit more time than serving a regular gelato, but it makes people happy and they always come back for more.

i-Creamy originally opened in 2012, in the Bondi Junction suburb of Sydney, but co-owners Pichaporn Sapsittiporn and Sasinuch Lapwongpaiboon later decided to move to the bustling business center of the Australian metropolis to make their flavors available to a wider audience. It proved to be a great idea, as the wide range of unique gelato flavors and their special serving technique quickly won over fans of the frozen treat.

Creating a gelato rose is a slow but satisfying process. Instead of the classic ice-cream scoop, i-Creamy staff use a shoehorn-like spatula to cut the “petals” out of the ice-cream tub and press them onto the cone. They start by cramming a small ice-cream wedge into the cone to act as the foundation for the flower, and then apply multiple layers of delicious gelato curls until the rose is complete. As you can see in the photos, the petals get increasingly large from the inside out, giving the finished flowers a more realistic look.

“We do it petal by petal,” Pichaporn Sapsittiporn told Broadsheet. “You need the right angle.” Each one of these frozen treats takes several hours to complete, so the shop tends to get a bit crowded at peak hours. But people have apparently gotten used to it and will just ask for classic ice-cream cones when they’re in a hurry or when the line behind them gets too long. “It takes time but our customers really love it,” Sasinuch Lapwongpaiboon adds. So much so, that most a re willing to pay an extra 30 cents to have their gelato shaped like a flower.

Another thing that makes i-Creamy special is their unusual flavor lineup. Their display cabinet features 24 different flavors, rotated from a menu of 96 flavor options, many of them inspired by Asian desserts. “We are all Thai, so we wanted to develop Asian flavors,” Lapwongpaiboon says. You can find flavors like Thai milk tea, palm sugar, black sesame, white chocolate miso and durian, alongside timeless gelato classics like hazelnut, tiramisu or vanilla, and novelty flavors like beer and popcorn.

i-Creamy patrons love to customize the look of their edible gelato flowers, by choosing the flavors to achieve the desired look. Some prefer a one-color design, while others go for a rainbow approach. Sapsittiporn always warns customers not to mix the durian with other flavors because it is so strong that the whole ice-cream will taste like it.

i-Creamy is definitely not the only place to get a gelato flower, but it’s definitely the most popular one right now. They’re creations are all over the internet these days.

Photos: i-Creamy/Facebook