When life presents you with so many opportunities, why would you pick the most vanilla option? That holds true to ice cream too. London has some amazingly innovative takes on it, whether you lean savoury or sweet. Here's our pick of the most out-there flavours for you to try.
Guava and chilli soft serve at Hoppers
King's Cross - Unit 3, 4 Pancras Sq, London N1C 4AG
Responding to the multiple heatwaves we've been having, the King's Cross branch of Hoppers has come up with a limited-edition soft serve for the summer. Their Guava Chilli Lime Softy is a guava soft serve, drizzled with pink guava sauce and sprinkled with lime and chilli salt. It's available until early September and we love that £1 of that goes to their charity initiative, Feeding the Future. That'll warm your heart while also cooling you down.
Stilton at Fenchurch Restaurant
City - (Level 37), Sky Garden, 1 Sky Garden Walk, London, EC3M 8AF
The Chef de Cuisine at this high-rise restaurant in the city, Kerth Gumbs, loves Colston Bassett Stilton so much that he's decided to turn it into an ice cream dessert for the summer. And we're not judging him for that. At Fenchurch, a scoop of this salty, savoury ice cream is served with mulled grapes, milk foam and apple and pecan cake.
Mango green curry at Cakes & Bubbles
Piccadilly - Hotel Café Royal, 70 Regent St., London W1B 4DY
You can't expect a chef like Albert Adrià to just put something basic on his ice cream menu for the summer. At Adrià's London cafe at the Hotel Café Royal, he has a range of new out-there flavours. But it's the curry one that caught our eye. The Mango Green Curry Ice Cream uses Alphonso mango with lime, tamarind, galangal, ginger, kaffir lime leaf, coriander and basil. It's a lurid green, but somehow that only makes us want to try it more.
Blue moon at Sticks and Cones
Marylebone - 41 Paddington Street, London W1U 4HN
For the ice cream equivalent of those slush puppies that used to turn your tongue bright blue you need to head on over to Marylebone. Newly opened Sticks & Cones has a Blue Moon ice cream flavour but, unlike the drinks of your childhood that were packed full of artificial colourings, these cones are all natural. It starts with a fior di latte made from fresh milk and cream from The Estate Dairy which is then turned into ice cream, adding a touch of blue spirulina to give it that viral hue.
Cream cheese and dill at Big Kid Ice Cream
Carnaby - 1 Kingly St, London W1B 5PA
To celebrate their third birthday the always-innovative ice cream shop in Carnaby has a typically alternative flavour on their menu for the summer. The birthday special is Cream Cheese & Dill Pickle, and it's made with cream cheese ice cream and studded with candied dill pickles. As they say, on paper it shouldn't work, but somehow in practice it really does.
Toasted Rice at Hausu
Peckham - 11a Station Wy, London SE15 4RX
Peckham’s favourite neighbourhood restaurant and vinyl bar is hoping to entice dessert fans in with a toasted rice ice cream, created by Head Chef Holly Middleton Joseph. They serve it with a sticky-sweet homemade caramel infused with five spice, fennel, star anise, Sichuan peppercorn and cinnamon. So it's cold, but warm, sweet but spicy. Something for everyone then.
Block of butter at Chin Chin
Soho and Covent Garden
Of all the dishes we served at our Murphia List party this year, it was the Kerrygold butter ice cream that had the most impact. Our party piece was a specifically Irish take on the ice cream lab's viral dessert that you can try at both of their central London locations. The Block of Butter is a honey butter ice cream with a caramelised honey toast and strawberry jam centre. It features the flavours of French toast but looks disconcertingly like a pat of butter, complete with gold foil covering.
All the flavours at The Ice Cream Project by Anya Hindmarch
Belgravia - 11 Pont St, London SW1X 9EH
Unexpectedly delicious is how the boffins behind designer Anya Hindmarch's recurring summer pop-up describe their flavours. That would certainly depend on how adventurous a palate you have. This year's flavours include everything from the 'yes, I'd try that' options of Tunnock's caramel wafers and Aunt Bessie's Golden Yorkshires to 'you're kidding, right?' flavours of Oxo stock cubes and Euthymol Original Toothpaste.
And everything at The Dreamery
Islington - 20a Halliford St, London N1 3HD
This place really doesn't need any more publicity after Dua Lipa hyped it up, but recent flavours at the Instaworthy natural wine bar and ice cream shop have included galia melon with sweet cicely, Greek mountain tea or lemon curd and poppyseed. Grab a seat inside if you're lucky to pair your dessert with their pick of wines.
London’s unusual ice creams, mapped.
Here's where to find the craziest ice cream flavours around town.
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