Australia-based Nitrogenie, whose employees make ice cream using liquid nitrogen the moment you order, will open Nov. 12 in the new Ewa wing at Ala Moana Center.

The company’s tag line is “Ice cream from magic,” meaning you will not walk in and find tubs of pre-packed ice cream.

Rather, you will find a selection of flavors that rotates weekly, you’ll choose one, and the “Nitrogenies” and “Nitrogeniuses” on duty will create the ice cream and finish it off with the toppings that go along with the selected choice. Each order takes about three minutes.

Nitrogenie’s first store opened in Australia in 2012. Seven stores now operate there, “and we’ve been gaining a lot of traction,” said Nitrogenie co-founder Todd Farr, who also serves as executive chef and general manager for the brand.

Through franchising agreements, Nitrogenie shops will open in the United Kingdom, Bali, Indonesia, “and early next year we’re opening more in Germany, Paris and Dubai,” Farr said.

“There are several reasons why we use liquid nitrogen,” he said. The resulting ice cream is “creamy, smooth and dense, quality ice cream,” that contains no aerators or anti-melting agents. The anglaise base is made from “high-percentage cream and milk, much higher than those commercially available at the market,” he said.

One signature flavor is salted caramel popcorn, which you might gather is ice cream garnished with popcorn, while the lemon meringue has flavored, made-to-order ice cream and includes lemon curd, “house-made butter crumble and lemon meringue on top,” Farr said.

All the dairy Nitrogenie uses is from Australia, which was “very challenging” to get certified at the state level because of paperwork and tariffs, said Sean Donahue, regional general manager for Red Planet Foods Hawaii, the franchisee bringing Nitrogenie to the islands.

“I had very large help from Edsung (Foodservice Company),” he said, which shepherded the complex approval processes.

Nitrogenie won’t be the first in Honolulu to offer liquid-nitrogen-frozen desserts.

For months now, Honolulu-based Primo Popcorn founder and culinarian Rylen Sato has prepared 77Korn, or flash-frozen flavored popcorn, as well as his new 77Kreme, or flash-frozen custard, at special events around the island, to great response.

Before that, flash-frozen ice cream using liquid nitrogen in Hawaii was largely the realm of fancy restaurants. Some cursory online research reveals that the technique dates back to at least 1901, though it would be fair to say that it didn’t catch on in culinary circles until recent years.

Nitrogenie is not the type of ice cream parlor familiar to most people.

It is “almost night-clubbish, it’s really neat,” Donahue said. “Todd and I were talking about a market analysis (and I told him), ‘There’s nothing like you here,’” he said.

The Ala Moana Nitrogenie store will be the ice cream shop’s first foray into the United States and will likely be the first of a few locations on Oahu, via master franchise holder Red Planet Japan Inc., Donahue said.

The company also will offer Nitrogenie Mobile, a portable ice cream shop that will be available for hire for private parties, community events and the like. The company will hire 25 to 30 staff members for the first store, he said.

Separately, Red Planet-affiliated company Sweetstar Hawaii LLC will open the Magnolia Bakery Cafe next to Nitrogenie, Donahue said. The famous bakery, as seen on “Sex and the City,” has five locations in New York City, one in Los Angeles and one in Chicago, and multiple locations around the world in Japan, the Middle East, Russia and Mexico.

The Hawaii Magnolia Bakery Cafe, however, will be the first to include a full-service restaurant that also will serve alcohol, Donahue said. “No other Magnolia in the world is a restaurant.”

The Ala Moana location will seat about 70, while the bakery side will seat about 22 customers. About 100 employees including “back-of-the-house, overnight bakers” will be hired for the operation that will expand into catering, likely in the spring.

Donahue has spent the past 15 years working in the Hawaii market, most recently at the former JW Marriott Ihilani Ko Olina Resort and Spa. He was among hundreds of local people who lost their jobs when the hotel closed for renovation and rebranding. “To have 519 jobs taken away at the blink of an eye, it’s refreshing to have a company come in here and add jobs,” he said. The company will be expanding operations “aggressively” and in the next two years or so will add 300 to 400 jobs in Hawaii, he said.

Reach Erika Engle at 529-4303, erika@staradvertiser.com, or on Twitter as @erikaengle.