The Vittles Ice Cream Guide 2026

Ice Cream City: a new guidebook by Ruby Tandoh.

Ice Cream City will be published in June 2026. Pre-order here.

Back in 2023, in the first version of her Ice Cream Guide, Ruby Tandoh wrote that ‘London is not, on the surface of things, an ice cream city.’ That guide was written over the course of three months and hundreds of scoops to go beyond ‘the surface’ - lists and guides that regurgitated the same few gelaterias summer after summer - and celebrate the abundance of London’s ice cream culture: everything from artfully-constructed sundaes at Japanese cafés, to the skill of churned-to-order Afghan sheeryakh. And, of course, actually great gelato.

Three years on, the task of documenting London’s ice cream has become more complex. The amount of excellent ice cream in the city seems to get greater each spring, when makers start to emerge out of their hibernation. Corner shops that might have once only had a freezer full of Unilever products, now contain choc-ices and tubs from small-batch makers from around London. There is a strong feeling of play and collaboration in the culture: East London cafe Bake Street has hosted Ilford’s Watani Sheeryakh; this month, La Grotta Ices is putting on an event with Fink’s. It turns out London is an ice cream city after all.

Over the last few months, Ruby has been researching the new guide by revisiting every ice cream vendor from the old guides, and trying out all the new ones (by our count, over 120 makers in total). She also wanted to provide a way of navigating all these places without having to rely on using your phone. The result is a labour of love and our first ever guidebook in print: Ice Cream City, an eighty-page (genuinely) pocket-sized guide to London’s best ice cream. It starts where the previous online guides left off, with 100 completely new and up-to-date recommendations for gelato, soft serve, kulfi, booza, bingsu, sheeryakh, bastani, sundaes, choc ices and more across London, along with functional area guides, walking routes, gripes and grievances, cautionary tales and the ten most exceptional scoops of the summer.

You can preorder Ice Cream City here now and booklets will arrive in late-June in time for ice cream season. Note: this guide will not appear online and is print only.