Nathalie's Gourmet Studio

I finally get to dine at the restaurant from the lady who single-handedly popularised macarons in KL. Her Solaris Dutamas outfit seems to tick all the boxes: looks, charm, fancy kitchen utensils dangling from the ceiling, and a concise and appetising menu that screams elegant and contemporary French cuisine. Despite all this, I still didn't think my palate had been sufficiently seduced....

Horlicks and White Coffee. Ice Cream form.

Third installment in my mission to taste all flavours from The Last Polka who make table-dancingly good ice cream.

More Polka! Malt & Peanut Butter and French Toast Ice Cream

Well hello there. Guess what I went looking for when the urge for good ice cream got too strong.

The Last Polka Ice Cream: First Class

Tuan-tuan dan Puan-Puan, Ladies & Gentlemen. It fills me with pure joy to say that quality Malaysian-made ice cream is now widely available in the Klang Valley. My heart skipped a beat just typing that. Alright alright, I know that I'm not the first to rave on about The Last Polka who've been in business since 2009 but it is exciting how KL has received this very now food trend towards artisanal ice cream.

The Icecreamists

Whoa momma. Remember the blizzards London has seen in the last two winters? I wonder if they were really made of ice cream seeing the craze that has exploded in this city. The Big Smoke could now rival Italy with some seriously good ice cream or gelato, owing to the success of institutions such as Gelupo, Scoop and Chin Chin Laboratrists. And then someone comes along and pushes everything to the next level.

The Icecreamists opens officially this week on Maiden Lane, Covent Garden and boy do they do it with every flourish and extravagance. The melange of bright fuchsia, gun metal, gothic black, and references to S&M in their brand is an immediate sensory playground.

From the playful quotes that adorn the walls from luminaries who’ve dabbled in the creamy delight, the erotic names of their items, to their awesome mission statement of “To Liberate the World from Ordinary Ice Cream”, I dig their strong, wild and hedonistic brand. And this doesn’t get lost in the ice cream itself.

As part of their preview invitation, their tasting menu consisted of a helping of ice cream followed by an ice cream cocktail.

Now a Malaysian can’t really turn down the offer of a Chilli, Ginger and Lemongrass ice cream. It was actually spicy with proper chilli flecks! Yowza! It immediately inspired a need for Pad Thai. Adored the consistency which was a cross between a sorbet and an ice cream.

We were also surprised that the Choc and Awe, in it's divine dark decadence, made of 70% Ecuadorian Dark Chocolate, had no cream in it. After those two, the equally rich and vanilla-flecked Vanilla Monologues almost tasted meek. 

And those sensational flavours were just the warm up. The headliners in this scoop are by far the cocktails. Amongst the most flamboyant is the Molotoffee Cocktail, which is a banoffee baked alaska, flambed at the table and finished off with some rum spray. Uh huh, uh huh!

The baked alaska was egg white perfection and definitely very boozy. By the time we got to the ice cream it felt like we had drowned in a toffee river. 

And this seductive, velvet red temptress was the berry dominatrix of the Icecreamists' erotic world. Miss Whiplash not only had a lasting effect, I even felt slightly tipsy after. Smooth and glossy, it's almost a sorbet made from berries soaked in vanilla vodka. Whoopah!

Lastly, the Toast Mortem was a pool of molten chocolate gelato with Frangelico (hazelnut liqueur) and hazelnut bits, served with toasted panettone. This decadence clearly doesn't end. Two slices of panettone wasn't enough to soak up all that chocolate! I really enjoyed the subtle peanut note in that. 

Making an impact on the London dessert scene would be an understatement. The Icecreamists have done a Lady Gaga, strutting their stuff on the cream catwalk with ludicrous abandon, heady frivolity and pure fun. Indeed their Baby Gaga flavour is reportedly made of real breast milk. I LOVE IT! These are premium products, and with serious prices: £2 something for an ice cream scoop and just under £15 per ice cream cocktail. I promise this is a memorable trip though. Viva la diva.

Gelupo

I now see what all the fuss is about with Gelupo. Sister outlet of Bocca di Lupo, this gelataria was yet another darling of the foodiesphere. Being skeptical to whether this ice cream/frozen trend would persist in the middle of a London winter, I was proven veeeerrryy wrong.

You may not get entirely traditional flavours, but you will get "Banana, Caramel, Pecan" or "Banana Stracciatella" which is enough to push most marketing buttons. Customers are encouraged to try any flavour before committing.

Move over Ben & Jerry's. The "Pear, Cinnamon, Ricotta" gelato put me in seventh heaven. It was as if someone had baked a spectacular Pear Crumble, crushed it and made it into ice cream. I could almost taste shortcrust pastry in there. Forgive me for not exactly remembering the name, the "Amaretti & Rum" was exactly that. Creamy, rich and decadent.

And don't these beauties look divine...

A gelato cake. Oh me, oh my!

One does pay a slight premium for this artisanal stuff, but dammit', it's a whole new level of frozen desserts. We're looking at £2-3 per serving, and its deli is also fairly high-end. However, judging from the ongoing line of custom and animated Italian chatter, perhaps Gelupo has managed to create some kinda small sunshine feeling in Soho.

Chin Chin Laboratories

He's been all over the news, and finally I get to see what this "nitro" ice-cream parlour is all about. Ahrash Akbari-Kalhur, a former City broker, has set up the first ice-cream parlour in Europe using liquid nitrogen to speed up the freezing process that turns cream into that luscious dessert. Wacky! I love stories like this: nine-to-fiver decides to ditch the rat-race to become gastro-scientist with a lot of flair. It was a sunny day in buzzing Camden town when we went to visit this thriving institution...

Chin Chin Laboratories is situated on Camden Lock Place, amongst the strange, the tacky and the gloriously bizarre crowd in Camden. We get there for around 3pm, and there has been an ongoing queue since they open for the day. So exactly what is everyone waiting for?

Step 1: Ahrash pours his creamy mixture into a sort of giant magimix. It's manned (and womanned) by the man himself and his wife, so no wonder it's always a bit hectic. There are always 3 flavours on offer: Vanilla, Chocolate and the Special of the Day. Today the special is an exotic Lychee & Rosewater which has my name all over it. 

Step 2: Out of some very dangerous looking appliances, comes some theatrical clouds of liquid nitrogen into a  metal jug. Oooo!

Step 3: Into the magimix mixture it goes. Clouds still swirling, the magimix is switched on, and after some whirring and chemical reactions, voila! Ice cream is born in a ridiculously short amount of time! Ahrash will willingly explain the process to any non-scientific brain, and works frantically to take orders.

Step 4: Does this remind you of chemistry class? The pippettes, beakers and lab bottles are all immaculately displayed, holding exciting toppings you can choose from. Everything from popping candy, lavendar sugar, sugared nuts to chocolates is available, and then decide on a sauce as well. That day we had either sea salt caramel, raspberry or blackberry. 

Result! My Lychee & Rosewater concoction was delicately flavoured and so smooth. I loved the sea salt caramel that gave it more punch, ending with a little crunch from toasted and sugared peanuts. The flavours mixed and melted in that awesome way ice cream and toppings do in the end, ensuring a very empty cup!

Though slightly gimmicky, and I wonder how long it will be till there are other copycats, it is a delightfully quirky indulgence. Absolutely worth a visit, and I wonder what the next specials will be! £3.95 gets you one cup, one topping and one sauce, a fun demonstration and chat with our inventors.