Gelupo

Fresh work at the counter

The gelato is made by hand every day at Gelupo in Soho, London, where Jacob Kenedy works as chef and co-founder. He opened the Archer Street gelateria in 2010 with Victor Hugo, two years after beginning his long run as chef-patron at Bocca di Lupo, and the two Soho addresses still read as companion pieces: one built around regional Italian cooking, the other around frozen texture, fruit, milk, sugar and restraint. Kenedy’s earlier post at Plaquemine Lock gave him the operational pace of a professional kitchen, but Gelupo asks for a different discipline. The bench is colder. The margin is narrower. A flavour has to hold its shape in a cone, a cup, a tub, or a brioche, without losing the point of the ingredient.

Fruit, milk and the daily churn

Gelupo’s method begins with freshness and returns to it. The house says its gelato is freshly made by hand every day, and the menu structure supports that claim: a rotating specials board sits beside a steadier run of classics, letting the bench answer the season without abandoning the flavours people come back for. Ricotta Sour Cherry, Pistachio Intenso, Bitter Chocolate sorbet and Burnt Caramel & Pecans form part of that fixed language. Around them, the specials can move into Alphonso Mango, Apricot, Cherry, Strawberry & Pink Peppercorn, Milk Chocolate & Thyme, Rice Pudding, or Blood Orange made with freshly squeezed Sicilian juice. The craft here is not only Italianate nostalgia. It is calibration: dairy against acidity, nut paste against salt, sorbet against ripeness, the cut of thyme or pink peppercorn held low enough that the fruit still leads. Vegan sorbets sit inside the main program rather than at its edge, which matters in a shop where the counter must make one clear promise to many different hands reaching for a spoon.

Blue, white and the short distance to the pass

The room keeps the work visible without turning it into theatre. Gelupo is bright and modern, with blue-and-white interiors and a deli-style counter that makes the choice feel immediate: the eye moves from tubs to labels to the hand drawing a scoop. It is small, lively, and built for motion, with casual sit-in space and a strong pull toward the street. Soho presses close around Archer Street, but the texture inside is more bench than dining room. Counter service suits the product. Gelato dislikes ceremony; it asks for temperature, timing and a clean transfer from spatula to cup. In that short exchange, the place shows its nature most clearly. The maker’s decision has already happened in the churn, but the final gesture belongs to the person at the counter.

A gelateria with a chef’s address book

Gelupo has also used its format as a place for collaboration. In 2016, the shop worked with seven Michelin-starred chefs on a limited menu tied to the 2017 Michelin Guide period, with contributors including Atul Kochhar, Fergus Henderson, Yoshi Ishii, Bruce Poole, Pierre Koffmann, Arnaud Bignon and Michel Roux. Those flavours were not drinks, not plated desserts, not a side project dressed as craft. They were gelato, folded back into the same cold discipline as the daily counter. If the next measure is simply what the bench makes today, the useful nouns are already there: Alphonso Mango, Ricotta Sour Cherry, Pistachio Intenso and Archer Street.