The Food Diaries

Bananas Gelateria in the Florentine valley of San Casciano in Val di Pesa.

Being a massive ice cream fan, it is great to see a growing trend towards more artisanal ice cream parlours (especially in places like London). Sadly however, no one seems to be able to do it with such ease and success as the Italians. Bananas, based in the tiny village of San Pancrazio (in the valley south of Florence) is a small, family-run producer, delivering lovely ice creams across the Florentine region. The small gelateria features around 10 seasonally-inspired flavours (such as strawberry, fig and hazelnut).

Closed Mondays and at lunchtime.

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Scoop Soho >

Scoop Soho, London

I am constantly on the look-out for candidates for Best Ice Cream Parlour in the World (not surprisingly most of them are situated in Italy - Turin, Florence, Milan). However, London has recently gone up in the stakes by presenting several new candidates (more on these in future posts no doubt).

In the meantime, I recently dropped by the second branch of Scoop (the first is in Covent Garden) tucked away behind Piccadilly Circus on Brewer St.

Scoop is traditionally Italian, so cream/milk/sugar form the basis of the ice creams and sorbets. No artificial colours are used (hence my mint ice cream on the left side of the photo is pure white), and really fine ingredients are used throughout (my pistachio ice cream on the right sources its pistachios from Bronte, a tiny Sicilian village whose volcanic soil give them a unique and slightly toasted flavour).

For the moment Scoop certainly tops the London leg of the competition.