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Best ice-cream in London
25.06.08
Mouthwatering: the family-run Marine Ices makes seasonal ice-creams and water ices
Ice-cool: Fortnum's new parlour favours richer, American styles
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Considering that a resolute Englishwoman called Agnes Marshall made ice cream a fashionable dinner party must-have as long ago as 1880, Britain has rather lost its way with ice cream. As is so often the case, technology was to blame: in the Sixties, profiteering commercial ice-cream companies found a way to whip more air into ice cream and so make more money, something that was only possible because the regulations decreed that ice cream was sold by volume rather than weight.
Meanwhile in America, where you ordered ice cream by the pound rather than the pint, they perfected a heavy style with lots of cream and rich flavours.
And the Italians? The Italians are acknowledged masters of fruit sorbets, water ices and gelato. This is a smooth, silky-textured ice cream achieved by using plenty of milk and not much cream, then adding real fruit flavours. Here's the lowdown on London's top 10 scoops.
ODDONO'S
14 Bute Street, SW7 (020 7052 0732)
Also at Selfridges and Whiteleys
£1.70 a scoop at Bute Street and Selfridges, £2 a scoop at Whiteleys. Most popular flavour: chocolate at Bute Street, pistachio at Selfridges and Whiteleys. Choice: 15 flavours.
Traditional Italian ice cream from a traditional Italian maker, Oddono's has a repertoire of 120 different flavours. The more obscure variations come and go.
THE PARLOUR AT FORTNUM & MASON
181 Piccadilly, W1 (020 7734 8040)
£2 a scoop. Most popular flavour: ginger and honeycomb. Choice: 20-plus flavours. After the recent makeover Fortnum emerged with a magnificent new ice-cream parlour. The ices tend towards the richer American style with some subtle combinations: strawberry with shortcake and balsamic vinegar; macadamia nut with chocolate; and a sumptuous 'bean' vanilla.
CAFFE DEL PARADISO
109 Highgate West Hill, N6 (020 8340 7818)
£1.50 a scoop. Most popular flavours: vanilla and chocolate. Choice: 14-plus flavours.
Small Italian café making good-value traditional Italian ice cream. As well as flavours such as Sicilian lemon it does a fine Fiore di Panna, which has a plain milky-creamy flavour and is a big hit with children.
GELATERIA DANIELI
16 Brewers Lane, Richmond, Surrey (020 8439 9807)
£1.95 a scoop. Most popular flavour: biscuit. Choice: 24-plus flavours. Another Italian gelato expert and home to the outrageously popular biscuit ice cream, a vanilla ice cream with pieces of biscuit and chocolate.
SCOOP
40 Shorts Gardens, WC2 (020 7240 2086)£2 per small cup or cone but you get two flavours. Most popular flavour: pistachio. Choice: 24 flavours.
Despite the modernist name, Scoop is the real deal. Management insists the credit for the particularly fine pistachio ice cream should go to the pistachio nuts from a small village in Sicily.
MACARON 22
The Pavement, SW4 (020 7498 2636)
£1.85 per scoop or £3.50 for two. Most popular flavour: vanilla. Choice: 10 flavours.
First and foremost a French pâtissier, Macaron gets its ice cream made by a French gentleman based locally. Try the raspberry or bitter chocolate, or both together.
MARINE ICES
8 Haverstock Hill, NW3 (020 7482 9003)
£1.70 per scoop. Most popular flavour: chocolate and vanilla. Choice: 28 flavours plus 12 water ices.
An old, much-loved favourite. The Mansi family continues to make seasonal ice creams and water ices. They take the reasonable view that it's only worth making melon water ice when there are lots of ripe melons at the market. Try the lemon sorbet.
MORELLI'S
Harrods Ground Floor, 87 Brompton Road, SW1 (020 7893 8959)
£2.25 per scoop takeaway, £2.75 eat in. Most popular flavour: chocolate. Choice: 20 flavours.
The Morelli family opened their first shop at Broadstairs in 1907. They have a huge repertoire but always offer 11 favourites, teaming them with another nine that rotate daily. Silky textured, traditional Italian.
THORNTON'S
353 Oxford Street, W1 (020 7493 7498) and other branches
£2 a scoop. Most popular flavour: chocolate. Choice: varies from store to store, between eight and 16 flavours. Thorntons offers a very good, heavy, American-style ice. Unsurprisingly, the chocolate flavour is very good.
GELATERIA VALERIE
Duke of York Square, SW3 (020 7730 7978)
£1.70 a scoop takeaway, £2.50 eat in.
Most popular flavour: vanilla. Choice: 24 flavours.
An elegant glass box just off Kings Road, this gelateria delivers the atmosphere you get on the Continent, where the idea of ending the evening at an ice-cream parlour is not defunct. The simple flavours are best: try the big three chocolate, vanilla and strawberry.
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Reader views (4)
Cafe Paradiso is now replaced by an indian restaurant
- Shiz, England-UK
Hello how are you doing pls i will like to know of you do have creams for sellf for that i can order some of it and i will like to know the cost of it plux the tax and get back to me soon.
- Larry Mike, ca
It's a stiflingly hot day here in Clerkenwell, which for generations has been the centre of the Italian community in London, and I need a decent Italian ice cream, and there isn't one to be found! There are Italian cafes the length and breadth of Cowcross Street, but not a proper ice cream anywhere - just a lot of mushy Walls strawberry Cornettos, bashed up and soggy and very unappealing-looking, at the bottom of Costcutter's fridge! Can anyone tell me where the nearest Italian icecream parlour is to Cowcross Street and St John Street?
- Ruth Ling, Clerkenwell, London
The Geleteria Valerie was disappointingly closed at 9.30pm on Saturday evening after a boiling hot day not very continental after all!
- Lindsey Webster, London
