This Celebrated International Gelato Brand Is Opening a First London Site

Grom, the “all-natural” Piemontese (Turin-based) gelateria, with stores in over 40 cities worldwide, is set to open its first shop in London this summer, on Piccadilly Circus.

The company was started in 2002, inspired by Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini who bemoaned the lack of traditional gelati in Italy, aggrieved by the belief that no-one was making gelato “like it used to be made.” From those words came a mission statement, and co-founders Guido Martinetti and Federico Grom opened their first store in Turin the following year, committed to making gelati free from artifical additives, stabilisers, or thickeners.

In May, Grom will open in London, the latest international entry for a brand that already has stores in the UAE, Japan, France, the U.S., Indonesia and Hong Kong, and is near-ubiquitous in Italy.

The Piccadilly Circus shop will follow the existing formula: the bases for Grom’s traditional gelati, sorbets, and granite are mixed from fresh, high-quality produce — fruit used is grown on the company’s organic farm, Mura Mura (which doubles as a research and development centre), in the rich agricultural soils outside Asti — in a central production facility to ensure consistency of quality, before being churned fresh daily in stores worldwide. That means fresh sorbets and granite are all made with Piemontese spring water, while milk and cream for gelati come from local Piemontese dairies — no matter where in the world the ultimate product is sold.

Classic flavours are all present and correct — gelati include stracciatella, fior di latte, and pistacchio, while the lemon sorbet, made with IGP-certified Siracusa fruit, is the “litmus test” for any good gelateria — and a rotating “flavour of the month” allows Grom to flex its creative muscles, with May’s special a mix of fior di latte gelato with candied cherry and broken chips of Ecuadorian chocolate.