Words by: Gabriela Fannia 
Artwork: Sama Harris 

Do you think your tastebuds are more sophisticated than your friends? Do you deem your taste as unconventional because licorice and mint are your go-to ice cream flavours? Just you wait.

You haven’t fully lived until you lick soy sauce, saké or chilli off your frozen little treat.

Fortunately for us who live in Melbourne and around, these are real ice cream flavours being served in a 70’s retro-style dessert shop in Thornbury. ‘Kenny Lover Ice Cream’ (@kennylovericecream) has been scooping their bold range of flavours since a bit before Covid-19 hit. Co-owner and ice cream chef, Michael Baker (Mike) is interested in more than just making ice creams. His mission is to understand the journey from the kitchen to your mouth, and perfect the formulation needed to achieve certain textures, flavours, and balances.

Mike believes that the chemistry side of ice cream making, like understanding the different sugars and temperatures, helps with troubleshooting. He said that as you get more experience, it becomes easier to take shortcuts. “You just sort of know, and the success rate gets higher”.

Every week or two there are newly crafted flavours to try at ‘Kenny Lover Ice Cream’. Mike and his brilliant imagination often “play on things”; he adapts a new range of flavours based on current seasons and trends, and uses bizarre and exotic ingredients. The shop prides itself on including native Australian ingredients, such as Davidson plums, lemon myrtle, wattleseed, and Geraldton wax.

Thanks to Mike, he gave us a simple guide on how these ingredients taste and what to expect be- fore we dip our spoons into the creamy creations:

Davidson plum is extremely acidic, bright red and a lot like lemon. “Not really something that you’d eat on its own, but if you think about it as acidic as lemon in your recipe, you could create some cool flavours,” he said.

Lemon myrtle is a popular native dried herb, citrusy in taste, sweet and refreshing.

Geraldton wax is also citrusy, like a kaffir lime or pine needle kind of taste.

Wattleseed is nutty, sort of like coffee and earthy in its flavour. It pairs very well with chocolate, and creams. “We tried it with tiramisu, so it’s called Wattlemisu. [The seeds] are also used as dusting on top,” he said.

‘Kenny Lover Ice Cream’ stays on top of their palate-discovering mission by getting inspiration from various cultures and making custom requests. Some of Mike’s notable faves are ‘kalamata olive and white chocolate’, and ‘vanilla and soy sauce caramel’. A memorable collaboration was the ‘saké sorbet’ done in collaboration with a Japanese restaurant. Another one was the ‘horchata ice cream’ — containing rice, watermelon, lime, corn and chilli — done at a Mexican restaurant.

If these eccentric flavours are still not enough for the daring tongues out there, the wackiness in ‘Kenny Lover Ice Cream’ does not end here. Their ice cream shop serves hot chips and, just recently, jaffles — encouraging customers to eat them with (you guessed it) ice cream. “Growing up, a lot of people used to dip their McDonalds chips in with their soft serve,” said Mike. “There is a science behind why it does actually work.” Ah of course there is!

“The reason that it works so well is because you’ve got hot and cold, so you’ve got a contrast there. You’ve got salty and sweet, and so you got this really nice sort of spectrum of flavours and it does balance really well.”

Mike wants to be different from the abundance of Italian-inspired gelato stores across Melbourne, and put a local twist on things. The hot chips and jaffles do exactly that and take Australian’s back to nostalgic days. “More Australiana vibes, over the top, a bit silly. That’s the whole vibe,” said Mike.

Although sour ice creams and spicy sorbets are not everyone’s thing, having an open mindset to go outside your ‘chocolate and vanilla’ comfort zone is what ‘Kenny Lover Ice Cream’s’ menu is trying to do.

““Some people are like “that [flavour] sounds disgusting.” A lot of our flavours, people react like that,” Mike explained. “Some people are narrow-minded with what they like, and that’s okay. But they’re not having much imagination on what might be good.”

As Mike likes to remind himself when inventing the next flavour combination, “just keep experimenting and pushing the boundaries.” A great reminder to just live a little! So, if your taste buds are feeling a bit adventurous, you know where to go!