La Grotta, April 14

I wrote about La Grotta Ices at Spa Terminus last year. More accurately, probably, I raved about them but winter happened and it was six months before I managed to get my second shot at Kitty Travers' ice cream. If they were open over the winter it was never when I was at Spa Terminus. Clearly my relationship with La Grotta is only ever going to be fond but sporadic. My bank account would probably argue that this is for the best. I am not one to begrudge the cost of high quality ingredients or limited production but £5 for two scoops is priiiiicey.

Still, I am greedy and I couldn't resist so I coughed up willingly enough. I opted for the Sea Salt Rosemary Caramel & Pine Nut Brittle and Kumquat Custard & Bitter Choc-Chip. All points for flavour originality. I stand by last review that La Grotta are better with fruit. The rosemary caramel was slightly unsettling. It wasn't unpleasant, I quite liked it, but it was odd. Despite running an ice cream blog, I don't have a particularly sweet tooth but this was arguably too savoury, even for me. Salt + rosemary + pine nuts are a lot of main course ingredients for your pudding. There might have been too much rosemary... I'm not sure if I've had it in ice cream before but I have baked with it and I think you have to use it sparingly - it is such a meaty, powerful herb and it was a bit overwhelming in the ice cream. The pine nuts were actually kind of invisible next to the rosemary and I've had delicious pine nut ice cream before at San Crispino's in Rome. Individually all of those flavour do/could work for an ice cream but either they're too much in combination or the balance was just off.

Kumquat custard / Salted rosemary

The kumquat was lovely though, unusual rather than weird. I don't have a great deal of experience with kumquats but the custard was charmingly fruity, both creamy and a little sharp, and the dark chocolate stracciatella made for a nice balance. Both ice creams were an excellent temperature (very important!) and there was a slight roughness to the texture that I really enjoyed.

Sure, La Grotta is difficult to track down and expensive and the experimental flavour combinations aren't always 100% to my taste but the quality is wonderful and they're always interesting and I will never pass up a chance to eat their offerings.