Please note, Four Winters has now closed. Time Out Food editors, June 2019.
Walking into Four Winters was a little like stepping into a walk-in fridge, which I suppose isn’t inappropriate for an ice cream shop, especially one that has its very own patented machine that freezes ice cream to order using a blast of liquid nitrogen. It’s what I’d imagine Heston Blumenthal has for a KitchenAid. The staff at the Chelsea shop, despite its frosty aesthetic, offered a warm welcome and eagerly talked new customers through the array of toppings and flavours they have laid out behind the counter like a brain-freeze buffet. Your chosen combination is then poured from a bottle into the scientific mixer and served rather beautifully in a little plastic tub.
There seem to be two main differences between the traditional scoop method and Four Winters’ blast-it-with-sub-zero-natural-gas method. With the latter, it comes out marvellously creamy; there’s no room for ice shards or air or anything else, just maximum good stuff. It wanted to return to its original liquid state once it started melting, so I found myself scooping up little puddles of clotted-cream-flavour soup. But there’s no doubt that in its served state, this is an exemplary ice cream.
That tempting counter full of house-made toppings – cookie dough, scones, Turkish delight, even spicy honey brittle – is sadly a bit misleading. Although I think they would allow you to smash in with a mad professor’s combination of any ingredient beginning with B (for instance), the advice is to choose from the dozen-odd combinations on their seasonal menu. Thankfully, they know what they’re doing, and you’ll find plenty of tempting twists on classic flavours to keep you going all year round. As long as you always carry a jumper.