Where gelato and coffee collide.
Coffee suprema girlfriend, gelato maestro boyfriend. A tale as old as time? Maybe not, but a recipe for an excellent cafe. (And a banging affogato!) Tecoma, a suburb at the foothills of the Dandenongs, got everything it ever wanted when barista Peggy Xu and gelatiere Michael Dobson opened Cafe Effe on the main drag at the end of 2025.
In the cabinet: darling tarts and galettes – often made with produce donated by locals – plus cookies filled with the likes of macadamia, white chocolate and the roasted green tea hojicha. At the counter: freshly spun gelato, six pots’ full.
There might be chilli-chai gelato made with local Caravan Chai powder, and another made from a profoundly delicious Mount Zero arbequina olive oil. Dobson, an alum of Kori Ice Cream, is never short of inspiration, but the possibilities here are just about endless, thanks to a flavour suggestion box filled with community entries that are regularly churned to life.
Ambient records line the walls, young families abound, Proud Mary coffee perfumes the air, and all is quaint in this lush corner of the world.
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Frank Sweet is editor of The Age Good Food Guide 2026 and a former food and drink editor at Time Out Beijing.
