Nation's first fish and chip ice-cream

Picture: Astrid Volzke

Fancy salt and vinegar with your ice-cream? If so you'll love Australia's first fish and chip ice-cream unveiled yesterday by its creators Fremantle fish and chip magnate George Kailis and local ice-cream chain Il Gelato.

Mr Kailis says he was inspired by the famous British chef Heston Blumenthal's internationally famous bacon and egg ice-cream.

Kailis and Il Gelato left no stone unturned in their search for the perfect fishy ice-cream. They flew in two Italian flavour scientists from Italy's Bigatton company - makers of the majority of the world's gelato pastes and flavourings - to taste Kailis' fish and chips before heading back to Italy to experiment and taste for five months in the laboratory.

And the taste? Not fishy at all. It has a subtle tang of salt which pokes through an otherwise conventional ice-cream base with just the slightest hint of … chips? Potato? Hard to say really.

"It's really good," 11-year-old Dylan Campbell-Wallace said between mouthfuls. "It tastes a bit chocolatey."