We've already told you about our favourite ice cream shops and where Londoners can get their gelato fix, but if you're stuck in the office or can't make it to your nearest dispenser of frozen goodness, make do with trawling these Instagram accounts in the mean time.
Gelupo
Located in Soho, Gelupo offers authentic Italian-style ice cream, with a bursting awards cabinet to boot. Flavours change regularly but examples include ricotta chocolate & black pepper, and blood orange sherbet.
Chin Chin Laboratories
This place, in Camden Market (with other branches in Soho and Canada Water), bills itself as a lab due to the use of liquid nitrogen to freeze the ice cream. A few flavours are available at a time, but change regularly. Examples include Tonka bean vanilla, burnt butter caramel and hazelnut baklava. We'll take one of each, thanks.
Scoop Gelato
With stores in South Kensington, Covent Garden and Harvey Nichols, Scoop offers cakes, waffles, crepes and churros as well as ice cream. Basically, if you need sugar, head here. The flavours are pretty run of the mill, but it's good stuff and come in generous quantities for the price you pay.
Ruby Violet
Based in Tufnell Park and King's Cross, Ruby Violet also has a travelling van which does the rounds. At time of writing, the week's special flavours include horseradish, and black sesame. Make of that what you will. And yes, that is an ice cream cake you see before you.
Amorino
Ice cream macarons. Why has no-one thought of this before? Islington stalwart Amorino (with plenty of other branches) also offers waffles, crepes and cakes, but we want to eat our way through the gelato menu first, starting with the lime basil, or ginger and blood orange.
La Gelatiera
Basil and chilli, Cornish blue cheese and walnuts feature on the ever-changing ice cream flavour menu of La Gelatiera, based in Covent Garden and East Village Stratford (what happened to good old-fashioned strawberry, eh?). The owner, Antonio, learned his trade from his grandfather, a gelato maker in southern Italy.
Marine Ices
Ah, so that's what happened to good old-fashioned Strawberry. Marine Ices in Chalk Farm offers traditional flavours such as strawberry, chocolate, coffee and mint choc chip. That's not to call it boring — the likes of salted caramel and toffee crunch also grace the menu, but if you're feeling very adventurous, the sundaes are the way to go. Marine Ices has an excellent reputation, and it's not for nothing.
Snowflake Gelato
Snowflake boutiques reside in Bayswater, Soho and various other locations around London, offering gelato and sorbetto to hungry Londoners. Alongside the cold stuff are sharing desserts, milkshakes and ice cream floats and all manner of other sugary goodness.
Ice and Slice
Pizza and ice cream are two of our favourite things (beer's in there somewhere too), which is why we're a little bit in love with Fulham Broadway's Ice and Slice, a traditional Italian pizza maker and artisan gelateria. Traditional flavours such as chocolate, lemon and coffee feature on the menu.
