Where to get the best soft serve ice cream in London

Creative flavours, inventive toppings - London's soft serve ice cream options this summer are spot on.

Kith Treats

Mayfair - 400 Oxford St, London W1A 1AB

Kith founder Ronnie Fieg is apparently obsessed with all things cereal, so the basic soft serve in his in-store ice cream and milkshake shop at Selfridges is a cereal milk ice cream. Choose from big-name collabs or DIY your own concoction, adding everything from cinnamon toast crunch and Golden Grahams to crushed Oreos and Kit Kats to mix in.

Blas

Hackney - Shore Pl, Victoria Park, London E9 7HN

What better way to wander around sunny Victoria Park than with a soft serve from this indie coffee kiosk in your hand? They change their flavours twice a month, to keep things exciting, with recent flavours including Pump Street chocolate and cereal milk. The soft serve itself is made with Estate Dairy milk, so you know it’s going to be the business.

Photo: @Jules_loti

Kabul Ice Cream

Wood Green and West Ealing

Afghan soft serve is the new kid on the block when it comes to the London ice cream scene. In addition to this soft service inside a Wood Green newsagent, you can also find it inside a food market in West Ealing. They both serve up these towering spirals of whipped ice cream, so high that they almost defy gravity. In Wood Green, there are four flavours - mango, vanilla, strawberry and pistachio and two mixed options - in Ealing the strawberry has been swapped out for chocolate.

Chestnut Bakery

Covent Garden- 24 Floral St, London WC2E 9DS

This summer, the Covent Garden branch of the bakery has put a soft serve spin on their best-selling honey toast. Pick from either rich chocolate or Oatly Vanilla soft serve, which is then served with a slice of croissant dipped in honey. Toppings are candied pistachios or chocolate feuilletine or (and why not?) both.

Jenki

Borough, Spitalfields, Covent Garden, Selfridges

100% ceremonial grade matcha is what you come to Jenki for. But if you don’t fancy a hot drink, then why not opt for their matchagato, which is their take on an affogato. It features creamy dairy soft serve topped with a shot of 100% ceremonial grade matcha and a dusting of matcha powder. Caffeine and sugar to go… don’t mind if we do.

Creme

Soho and Notting Hill

Creme only do one kind of soft serve, but when it’s done this well, why mess around with a winning formula? Their malted soft serve comes with a very generous sprinkling of cookie crumb and it you love the malty/Ovaltiney flavour profile, this is definitely the ice cream for you.

Bake Street

Clapton - 58 Evering Rd, Lower Clapton, London N16 7SR

They may be best known for their crème brûlée cookies, but there's always been an interesting soft-serve option available at this East London bakery. Most recently, they celebrated mango season with an Indian mango soft serve.

Photo: @cassaboutfood

Jolene, Hornsey Road

Finsbury Park - 324 Hornsey Rd, London N7 7HE

There's always a soft serve offering at this North London outpost of the Jolene group. The flavour changes every other week - it's often a seasonal fruit flavour and most recently they've been serving up vanilla with chocolate sauce and brown butter crumb and a very summery cherry soft serve.

Soft & Swirly

E5 Bakehouse

As the name suggests, it's all about the soft serve here. The team responsible for the innovative creations are Farah Kezouh and Sam Lowry (ex-Toklas and Leila's respectively). Recent flavours this summer have included plum and vanilla, and cherry & mascarpone. They also do some rather stunning ice-cream sundaes that are worth checking out too.

%Arabica

Battersea, Spitalfields, Hackney and Covent Garden

Kyoto coffee company %Arabica had to head overseas before now if they fancied trying their much-vaunted soft serve. But proof that good things come to those who wait, they've just launched their coffee and matcha soft serves in the UK. Right now, it's only available in the Spitalfields and Battersea Power Station branches, but it'll soon be available in all stores.

Taiyakiya

Chinatown - 20 Newport Court, London WC2H 7PR

In the heart of Chinatown, Taiyakiya are worth checking out for flavours you might not have tried before, like lychee rose. Have the ice cream in a cup or - our preference - in one of their signature taiyakis. The Little Mermaid and Unicorn options are particularly Insta-worthy.

Rosslyn Coffee

City of London - various sites

Award-winning coffee group Rosslyn Coffee are back with their summer coffee soft serve. It's made using Happy Endings vanilla-infused Estate Dairy milk soft serve, which has been blended with 24-hour cold brew made from their Roasted for Milk coffee and then generously dusted with Mörk cocoa powder.

Tsujiri

Camden and Chinatown

Chinese dessert tea house Tsujiri specialises in matcha so, of course, they offer that as one of their soft serve options, but if you want to go for something a bit different there's always cherry blossom flavour to try. Their sundae combos are also very popular - the signature Tsujiri features matcha soft serve with mochi, roasted brown rice, monaka biscuit and red bean.

Soft Serve Society

Boxhall City

As the name suggests, Soft Serve Society are ALL about the soft serve, whether that's as part of a freakshake, in a sundae pot or just as a cone. Flavour combos change all the time and the toppings are particularly inventive, including Oreo crumbs, brownie bites, mochi balls or apple stew. Go for the coconut charcoal ice cream base if you want to switch things up a bit.

Plus, look out for these soft-serve freebies...

If you’re after a mini soft-serve treat then these London restaurants offer them as free desserts at the end of a meal.

Flat Iron - the originator of this great trend, a steak dinner currently ends with a Tahitian vanilla mini cone topped with Cru Virunga chocolate shavings.
Black Bear Burger - all meals here end with a custard-based teeny soft-serve cone.

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