London's best winter ice cream flavours

Before scrambling for the hot chocolate to warm you this winter, numb the pain instead with these festive frozen treats

Mollie Goodfellow21 November 2013

When cuddling up in your coat at a freezing bus stop, the last thing on your mind is “I really fancy an ice cream”. Yet some of London’s top ice creameries and gelaterias are whipping up festive flavours to make you shun your instincts and indulge in a sub-zero treat.

Gelupo is mixing up a range of Christmassy flavours, hand created by Jacob Kenedy and his team in Soho. They include a classic clementine sorbet, spiced chocolate-orange and traditional Christmas pudding flavour, featuring a boozy combination of brandy and dark sugar.

Taking winter ice cream down the science route is Camden’s Chin Chin Labs. It will shortly be bringing out its Christmas tree flavour ice cream (yes, really), which has been created using a mixture of herbs to help you taste the smell of a Christmas tree. “Attitudes towards ice cream eating in winter are slowly changing, and it also allows us to get wild and extra creative. Selling ice cream in summer is easy; it’s winter that makes it interesting,” say Ahrash Akbari-Kalhur and Nyisha Weber, owners of Chin Chin Labs.

Scooping up the top prize for the oddest winter ice cream flavour has to be Black Vanilla with its cranberry gelato with turkey ripple. Available from now until the end of December, it puts a chilled-out twist on the traditional Christmas meal. For the less adventurous there is panettone or Christmas pudding flavour.

So, before scrambling for the hot chocolate to warm you this winter, numb the pain instead with festive frozen treats.