Born in Italy.
Made in London.
CIAO.
Sam and Enri were born in Italy. Their paths wouldn’t cross for a few decades, but they both grew up with a love of food and making a mess while eating it.
Enri trained as a chef back in Italy before moving to London to develop his skills at fine dining restaurants. Sam was working as a chef when they met for the first time in London’s Michelin-starred Locanda Locatelli.
A few trips to the pub later, Sam persuaded Enri to start a supper club with him. They’ve been stuck with each other ever since.
the godfather
Dreaming of one day making their own Italian-style gelato, Enri took Sam (and several notepads) to Sicily to meet his Godfather Franco.
Franco supplied gelaterias with top-notch ingredients. He introduced them to master gelatieri in Sicily, Calabria and Basilicata.
Many questions were asked. Some secrets were shared.
With a headful of knowledge and a suitcase full of Piedmont hazelnuts, they returned to London and set to work to make their gelato company dreams a reality.
But does it have a lift?
They rented their first kitchen in Oval Space and learnt a valuable and painful lesson:
Never rent a kitchen on the first floor unless it has a lift.
The deposit had already been paid when they realised their 300kg machines would need to be carried up the stairs. In the end, four big Bulgarian men got £20 each for an hour of heavy lifting.
And then they realised the space was too small, so moved out four months later and had to pay the Bulgarians to get them down again.
Undercover ice cream
It was time to name the new venture. A Facebook poll among friends gave them a shortlist of three: Scoop Doggy Dogg, Hackney Lick and Undercover Ice Cream (with the accompanying business plan to sell scoops to dehydrated people coming out of Fabric nightclub at 4am).
Hackney Lick was the firm favourite and they used it until a company called Lick sent a cease a desist letter. Back to the drawing board.
They were making gelato. They were making it in Hackney. Hackney Gelato, anyone? Job done.
We now had a name. Time for some customers.
Made by chefs, for chefs.
Our first customers were all chefs. One of the first was Tomos Parry. He was grilling strawberries at his barbecue pop-up at Climpson’s Arch and wanted a great ice cream to go with it. He tried our Clotted Cream gelato, gave us some helpful feedback, we went away and made it better, and Franco’s Your Uncle we were added to his menu.
BUSY, bUSY, BUSY.
Once we got going, things moved fast. Word spread among the London chef community and soon we were supplying multiple restaurants including Som Saa and Verdi at The Royal Albert Hall.
Enri worked the morning shift in the kitchen while Sam did the deliveries, and then Sam took over in the kitchen while Enri went to his chef job in the evenings. The only time they took off is when the machines broke and they had to wait for them to be repaired.
It was a whirlwind of excitement, adrenaline and tiredness.
Oh god, the tiredness.
Sneakers
One of the first recipes we ever made was Peanut Butter & Chocolate. We called it Snickers at first, and then Sneakers because we were worried about being sued. After a while, we cut our losses and changed the name to Peanut Butter & Chocolate.
People loved it at our first stall on Brick Lane’s Sunday market. People still love it now. We doubt we’ll ever stop making it.
toasted oak Gelato
A hip new restaurant called Smokestak was opening in Shoreditch. They wanted a toasted oak ice cream for their menu and came to us with just a week to go until launch.
We made it, just. The toasted oak part of the recipe set fire to our machines and it only stayed on the menu for two weeks. But it meant we got to work with the brilliant chefs at Smokestak, and we still do today.
Most of our recipes start as bespoke creations for chefs and go on to become firm favourites for their punters. Toasted Oak gelato is not one of those recipes. It hasn’t put Enri off his love of savoury flavours though, but we’ve no plans to release his beloved Beetroot & Feta sorbetto just yet.
A YEAR OF FIRSTS
Not content with making bespoke recipes for chefs, we decided to put our gelato and sorbetto into freezers and tubs to sell in the shops.
The first-ever Hackney Gelato freezer went into Village Organic near Victoria Park, and when word got out we were bombarded with requests from other local shopkeepers. The first little tubs we ever sold were at Well Street Pizza. Later that year, Sam took samples to Harrod’s and they became our first 460ml stockist.
After three years in business, people could now enjoy our gelato in the finest restaurants, shops and living rooms across London.
One small step for man, one giant leap for two men with a gelato company and a truckload of branded freezers.
We’re still served in Village Organic, Well Street Pizza and Harrod’s. Grazie mille for sticking with us.
THE DEAN MACHINE
Some companies have a sophisticated delivery process. We had Dean.
Every morning, Dean loaded up a van and delivered our gelato across London. It was fast. It was agile. It was often parked illegally.
Dean is a legend who helped us show up in more places and sell more gelato right across the city. But he did cost us about the same in parking fines. So, fiscally speaking, thanks for nothing, Dean.
Going global (well, Sheffield)
Game-changing news came when we found out that 4 of our tubs were going into Ocado. It took 5 years, 7 broken pasteurisers and 2 very tired Hacktalians, but we were finally available nationwide.
A few months later we added Waitrose and then Tesco in early 2021. Sam got a message from his family in Sheffield to say they had just bought a tub in their local supermarket and had a little cry on the overground.
Moving home
Growing faster than our little kitchen in Hackney could handle, we started scouring for a new base. We looked all around Hackney but realised we’d have to stretch our wings as far as E17 if we were going to get the space we needed.
We settled into our new place nicely. There are three craft breweries within stumbling distance of our kitchen, but no one’s turned up for work drunk yet..
BAKING ICE CREAM
More space meant we could buy more equipment, and you don’t have to ask Enri twice to buy shiny new kitchen toys. Necessary upgrades to mixers and fridges came with the less urgent addition of a caramel machine and an oven, turning our chefs into bakers as well as gelato makers.
We put the oven to good use, baking hot cross buns and mince pies for our seasonal gelato. So it turns out the oven was a very shrewd business decision after all, and if anything we should buy more gadgets.
Learning to delegate
As hard-working as Sam and Enri are, it takes more than just the two of them to get our wares into shops and faces across the country. Over the years we’ve steadily added to the team, and now have 33 nice, talented people at our East London base. Half are in the kitchen making gelato. The other half are in the office, making sure people buy the gelato.
Our first posters
A proper proud moment arrived in 2021 when our very first posters went up around London. Sam cycled around taking photos of them and saying insightful things like ‘they’re really big’. Enri stayed in the kitchen making gelato.
Grazie mille to everyone who has ever bought a scoop or a tub and helped us get this far.
ingesting investing
To help us make more great gelato, we invited over 800 crowdfunding investors to join La Famiglia. We were very happy to welcome each and every one of them, but we did slightly regret offering free gelato as part of the deal.
freezer squeezer
Armed with our crowdfunding cash, we doubled the size of our kitchen and warehouse. The new freezer could hold 152 pallets of gelato. And if that didn’t take up enough room, we added a second production line so we could make enough gelato to fill the massive freezer we’d bought.
In not completely unrelated news, we ran out of space in the office, and some of the team had to move into the Big Penny Social microbrewery down the road. Were they frozen out? No comment.
SOAPY
We found out that Matthew Freud (you know, great grandson of Sigmund) had an old ice cream van hidden away in a forest. The inside of the van was entirely lined with fur. It was called Soapy. And naturally, we wanted it.
We had dreams of restoring it and using it for events. We talked to mechanics. We tried our best to scrub Soapy back to life. But we couldn’t get her back on the road. At least we tried our breast. Ahem, tried our BEST.
Sorry. Freudian slip.
b better
We joined loads of brilliant companies around the world in officially becoming a certified B Corporation. We love making gelato, but it’s not worth destroying the planet for, and as a B Corp we’re part of a global movement of businesses that meet high standards of social and environmental impact. And we’ll do our best to keep up those standards as long as we’re making gelato.
GRAVY GELATO
Some things in life are expected. Births, deaths, throwing your back out the minute you turn 35. But you never expect to get a call from KFC asking if you fancy making a gravy gelato.
Enrico’s first reaction was confusion. Then anger. Then confusion again. He’s always wanted to make a savoury gelato, and the universe (and us) had always stood in his way.
KFC’s gravy gelato was a very limited edition collaboration, so you can’t get your hands on it now. And if we’re levelling with you, that’s probably for the best.
LOLLY TIME
After years of perfecting our gelato recipes, we turned our attention to lollies. And not just any old watery lollies, these are fruit-filled, super refreshing sorbetto lollies. Which is why they picked up a Great Taste Award. And why they're selling faster than we can make them.
We’re very proud of them. We’re not expecting you to feel as much pride over a food item you didn’t make, but we think you might like them if you give them a try.
BRAND NEW
We’ve grown a lot in the last few years, but we’ve looked pretty much the same since the start. Time for a brand new look for our bigger, better, slightly more grown-up era. We hope you like it (it took us ages).
The Future
Who knows what the future holds for Hackney Gelato. Will we continue to break our very expensive equipment? (Probably.)
Will Enri continue his quest to one day make a Beetroot & Feta sorbetto? (Definitely.)
Will we share all of the breaking gelato and sorbetto news as it happens with our newsletter subscribers before anybody else? (As long as we remember to write it - sign up below to see if we do.)