Please note, Gelupo has now closed. Time Out Food editors, April 2019.
The old cliché about location, location, location might have been coined for the brand-new Gelupo and Vico. It is entirely possible that 95 percent of people who set foot in London, whether residents or tourists, set foot at some point in Cambridge Circus. And as of August 3, that 95 percent has had Gelupo staring them in the face from the quadrant between Charing Cross Road and Shaftesbury Avenue.
The double-jointed venture is the creation of Jacob Kennedy and his team at Bocca di Lupo, the perennially rammed Italian small-plates specialist in Soho. Bocca has the original Gelupo just down the street, but here sweet and savoury combine in a single space. While Vico won’t open until the end of August, we got to Gelupo on its first day and slurped our way through a selection of cones.
There’s little to complain about in the quality of the ice cream. The chocolate didn’t wow us, but apart from that there were oohs and aahs. The annihilator of an amaretto cone pronounced it one of the best ice creams he’s ever eaten. Strawberry was ‘classic,’ mint-chocolate dreamy, and spagnola, a rich mix of cherry and vanilla, possibly the best of the lot.
We do have two quibbles. One is the space, with its benches giving seating that’s adequate but not particularly comfortable and certainly not cosy. The original Gelupo wins hands-down in this regard. (Which is why so many people skip dessert at Bocca di Lupo in favour of a cone or cup down the road.)
Our second quibble concerns price. Really good ice cream is never cheapo stuff, but paying £4 for a small cone just doesn’t seem right – cutting that to £3.50 would make a big difference. The fiver they charge for a larger one made more sense, but you should still be aware that a visit here is going to cost you – especially if you’re footing the bill for a crew of kiddies.
Despite the prices, Gelupo’s frozen goods are likely to get a warm reception. And we’re down with that. If it descended a notch in price, we'd be even more down with it.