Agusta Triwahyu learned to make gelato with a friend’s relative while holidaying in Rome. She didn’t have any ambitions beyond winning the dessert stage at dinner parties or sugaring-up her future kids.
“But then when I came back,” the former engineer says, “it clicked: ‘Maybe I should make this professionally, in bigger batches, and sell it’.”
That was a few years ago. Since then she’s been wholesaling to cafes and restaurants under the name The Rolling Scoops, but a shopfront was always the dream.
We think you might like Access. For $12 a month, join our membership program to stay in the know.
SIGN UPNow she has one. Beku – which means “frozen” in Bahasa Indonesian – opened on Christmas Eve. Inside, Triwahyu draws on South East Asia to make durian gelato and another flavoured with teh tarik, Malaysian condensed-milk tea. For vegans there’s mint and lychee sorbet, and coconut sorbet with jackfruit bits.
Chocolate, vanilla and raspberry are also stored in the counter’s recessed pozzetti tubs, if you can’t go past the classics. Just don’t leave without trying our favourite, the aromatic Turkish delight.
The flavours will change monthly.
As we’ve come to expect from Melbourne’s new-gen gelaterias, everything made at Beku is free from artificial preservatives and colourings, though the gelato does contain a natural vegetable-gum stabiliser. Triwahyu hasn’t settled on a milk supplier yet, but she’s been testing the best – St David’s, Timboon and Schulz Organic.
Beku Gelato
171 Lygon Street, Brunswick East
No phone
Hours:
Mon to Thu 2pm–9pm
Fri to Sun 2pm–10pm
This article was updated on March 16, 2018.
Cafes
Restaurants
Bars
Accommodation
Shop
Broadsheet Pick
Recently Opened
