La Gelateria, 20th April

On one of my many wanders around central London I passed by a cute little gelateria called La Gelateria. From the doorway I spotted intriguing flavours with stuff like 'rosemary' and 'balsamic vinegar'. My interest piqued, I put it on the list for a sunny day.

And this weekend I deemed sunny enough for ice cream, even though it was only warm when the sun was shining directly on you. So after my umpteenth visit to Wahaca for lunch, I made a beeline for La Gelateria for dessert. 

They had your standard vanilla and chocolate and stracciatella (choc chip) but there were enough of the more unusual flavours to make choosing a bit of a chore. I was in the mood for indulgence though so I eschewed the lighter, fresher sounding flavours like basil and chilli or custard cream with lemon zest and went for the black treacle toffee and the tartufo (chocolate truffle). 

I can't fault my choices. The treacle toffee was rich and cindery. It wasn't just a posh name for caramel, it really had the treacle flavour. The chocolate in the tartufo was very dark and there were crunchy bits of praline I think throughout. Heavenly. My only complaint was that, and this might sound weird, it didn't really seem to melt - I like it when the last few mouthfuls are all slushy and almost like a really thick milkshake.

But you can tell this was a minor thing as I went back the next day! They seem to change their flavours daily so while some of them were the same, both the ice creams I'd chosen Saturday were gone, and the caramelised chestnut, vanilla and rosemary had also been replaced. I wanted to try another one of their unusual flavours and something I could fool myself into thinking was a touch healthier. This I achieved by ordering things which had some gesture at fruit in them - the custard with lemon and the honey, rosemary and orange. I took Stephen with me this time and he had chocolate with sour cherries and dulce de leche.

My favourite of my two was the honey ice cream - the rosemary totally worked in combination with the sweet flavours. I thought the custard wasn't as custardy as I'd have liked and mostly just tasted of lemon. Similarly, Stephen thought the dulce de leche was maybe a little too subtley flavoured but he loved his chocolate and cherry scoop. The other 'crazy combos' on offer today were pannetonne and caramelised fennel seeds which part of me wanted to order but I had to remind myself I don't really like the fennel taste so ordering it simply because it sounded cool was a daft idea.

Gelupo has some competition on its hands for my favourite ice cream parlour!

Dri Dri, 29th March

Over the last year or so I have become a massive fan of Gelato – special mention to my friend Jan who has known it is the supreme ice cream all along – and have been trying to get to the many gelaterias on my List. Yesterday the weather was beautiful, so, even though I’d just had pizza and knew I’d be going to Princi later, I thought not having an ice cream would be out of the question. I was trying to complete a couple of the Big Egg Hunt zones, one of which happened to be Sloane Square and I was pretty certain that Dri Dri had an outlet in that area. A quick check on the smartphone confirmed it and I was able to go and sample their wares without detouring too much from my egg-hunting route.

Bearing in mind the aforementioned food, I opted for a small cup. It was only £2.90 which seemed reasonable. I misjudged though – the amount you get is literally the volume of the cup and no more, so I felt like I didn’t have very much. They have about 12 different flavours and I chose crema (custard) and caramello saltado (salted caramel). The latter was fantastic. I find you really can’t go wrong with salted caramel anything. The crema was a let down. The flavour was quite light and refreshing, perhaps a little too light. And then – cardinal sin – I found quite a large ice crystal I had to chomp through! And then – oh horror – another section which was all ice crystal, and not creamy smooth like gelato should be. I finished it all of course, but, like Pizza Pilgrims, it didn’t do enough to oust what I consider to be my favourite gelateria in London – Gelupo – from its position.