Just eight months after parking the proverbial kariton (Filipino street-food ice-cream cart) and opening a bricks-and-mortar shop in Footscray, Kariton Sorbetes has expanded with a new flagship on Russell Street in the CBD.

“Chinatown matches who we are as a brand, our personality,” co-owner John Rivera tells Broadsheet. “We understand where ‘dirty ice-cream’ started – in the streets – and we wanted to show that you can have this special thing amongst the roughness and realness.”

Former Lume and Sunda chef Rivera launched Kariton Sorbetes with Minh Duong (a former Maha pastry chef) as a takeaway service in 2020, with the goal of becoming “the Asian Messina”. Now, there are lines outside the Footscray shop – and the same’s been happening at the new store, too.

Stay in the know with our free newsletter. The latest restaurants, must-see exhibitions, style trends, travel spots and more – curated by those who know.

SIGN UP

Ten of the 12 available flavours come from Kariton’s Filipino-inspired core range – including ube halaya (purple-yam gelato with ube jam and latik, or caramelised coconut curds), keso (cheddar and bourbon-vanilla gelato with cashews and Sky Flakes, a Filipino cracker), mango float (mango sorbet and fior di latte gelato with mango jam and Graham-cracker crumbs), champorado (based on a Filipino breakfast rice pudding, made here with fish-sauce salted caramel and puffed wild rice) and leche flan (Filipino crème caramel).

Two slots are reserved for specials – the Milo Dinosaur has been popular in Footscray, so it’s making an appearance here too, along with a play on tiramisu: coconut and mascarpone gelato, coconut-soaked sponge fingers, Vietnamese coffee caramel and chocolate soil.

You can get all the flavours as scoops, in tubs to take home, or inside pillowy bread rolls called pandesal, made in-house.

The taho soft-serve (silken-tofu-flavoured ice-cream topped with soy-milk panna cotta, boba pearls and oolong tea syrup) is also available, along with rotating slushies that are exclusive to Chinatown. At opening it’s a Sarsi Spida – sarsaparilla slushie with tonka bean milk foam.

While the Footscray store is more reminiscent of small towns in Filipino provinces – neighbourhood-like, local and ancestral – the Chinatown store draws from the contemporary cityscapes of places like Manila.

“We’ve got bright lights and shiny materials, but still holding true to the heritage you see in Chinatown: the exposed walls, that bit of roughness. It’s big city lights,” Rivera says. The day’s menu is projected onto the curved ceiling, which is painted in sky-light hues.

Local architect Stefan Bagnoli – who also designed the Footscray store – is behind the glowing, almost ethereal new flagship. Rivera and Duong’s business partner Michael Mabuti also worked on the build through his company Seventy7 Projects.

Kariton Sorbetes Chinatown
177 Russell Street, Melbourne

Hours:
Mon to Wed 12pm–10pm
Thu to Sun 12pm–11pm

karitonsorbetes.com