Award-winning Cow and the Moon gelato set to open in Wollongong

The outlet, in the newly-reopened Langs Corner building in lower Crown Street Mall, will be the only other Cow and the Moon outside the original Enmore Road shop.

Owner Sam Crowl, whose family started the gelateria in 2010, said the opening - expected to be early next year - would be a return to his family's roots.

"My mother and father were from the Illawarra, growing up in Kiama and Lake Illawarra, we lived there when me and my sisters were kids before we moved to Sydney," he said.

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"And all our extended family live down there, and now my wife's family live down there too. We have lots of ties to the Illawarra and we thought the people of the Illawarra deserve to have a nice product like we make."

"My father started as a chef in the Illawarra and then in Sydney as well. He then moved into pastry, and we used to own some bakeries in the Illawarra and then he ended up getting a job with an ingredient company which imported gelato and bakery ingredients from Italy.

"He learnt gelato along the way and fell in love with the art of making gelato and was teaching lots of people to make gelato for their own shops, and so we said 'why don't we open our own one!'."

Cow and the Moon has long been a popular dessert spot for Sydneysiders, especially after Sam's father John Crowl was crowned the world's best gelato maker in 2014 for his affogato flavour with Madagascan vanilla, caramelised almonds and espresso caramel sauce.

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The business was also Australia's finalist for the Gelato Festival World Masters in 2021 - for its pannacotta, poached strawberries and balsamic gelato - and was also named gelato champion at the 2022 Sydney Royal cheese and dairy awards.

"In 2014 we won the Gelato World Tour in Rimeni in Italy, which went all the way around the world and they ended up selecting 24 finalists to compete in Italy in the grand finale," Sam Crow; said.

"We went all the way and won the whole thing."

He said the award winning affogato flavour, as well as an array of other creative options, would be on offer at the Wollongong store.

"We're quite creative in the kitchen, we draw inspiration from all walks of food," he said.

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"For example, we do an orange, poppyseed and burnt butter... so it's mix on traditional and modern, we make things we think the traditionalist will love but also for people who haven't had gelato before.

"We're excited about having a new crowd, a new challenge."

For the past three weeks, the company has held a stall at the Crown Street Mall food markets, and Mr Crowl said the reaction so far had been positive.

"Everyone has been excited - especially people that have moved from Sydney in the past few years who have said how much they have loved living in Wollongong but miss some of the Sydney food scene," he said.

"We're excited to come down and be a part of the hospitality community."

He said the lower Crown Street Mall site was well suited to the business.

"It's a developing area, which suited us, being that arts district of Wollongong with the Entertainment Centre and things," he said.

"[The location] has a lot of ties to what we have in Enmore with the Enmore Theatre and universities and schools around - so things we could draw on from our experience here in Enmore.

"We've always been a creative team and employed creatives, and so being down in that end of town made sense for us. And it's close to the beach - and everyone loves gelato and the water."

While "coming soon" signs have been installed on the shopfront, Mr Crowl said the Crown Street shop's opening date was expected to be around March next year - later than they had hoped due to some trade and construction delays.

"We'll be producing gelato onsite, and we'll also be making off lots of fresh pastries and will have a big specialty coffee option as well," he said.

"There'll be desserts, chocolates and gelato."

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