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 Bronte Pistachios, they came back to London and set to work on making their gelato company 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 Scoop Doggy Dogg, Undercover Ice Cream (with the accompanying business plan to sell scoops to dehydrated people coming out of nightclubs at 3am) and Hackney Lick.
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.
Jackpot peanut butter were in the same building as us, so we swiped some jars and made it a properly local recipe. 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 nearly 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 500ml 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.
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’re settling 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..
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 20 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 September 2021 when our very first poster ads were put up around London. We don’t often sit around and dwell on the past, but it’s quite something to think that Hackney Gelato started as an idea in the pub between shifts in Locanda Locatelli, and now we have posters of our tubs all across London.
Grazie mille to everyone who has ever bought a scoop or a tub and helped us get this far.
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)
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