iScream Gelateria scoops highest Good Food Awards honour

It is the highest award given by the Good Food Awards and goes to businesses who have won for three consecutive years or more.

Judges said: “These premises have demonstrated exceptional levels of food quality, service and value when compared to our industry benchmarks in their category and have now maintained this formidable standard for three or more consecutive years.”

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They were Good Food Award winners in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

Founder and gelatiere Graham MacDonald said: “It’s a great accolade. My background is in engineering so I either make the gelato and sorbets properly or I don’t do it at all. If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well.”

He added: “Our standards have only improved since we opened. Our methods have only got better and more efficient and we’re using even less sugar and more fruit.

“People come from miles around. I had some people in yesterday from London but if you’re travelling from Scotland to the West Country Oxford is a good place to drop off.”

Graham and Jen celebrate five years at the shop

Mr MacDonald had an epiphany moment on a holiday in Tuscany 10 years ago and vowed to one day open a gelateria after tasting ice-cream at the village’s gelateria which was open from dawn until the wee hours and packed with locals.

In 2014, he and his wife Jen leapt at the chance to take on a lease in Oxford’s Covered Market.

He added: “We opened on June 30 six years ago and it was one of the hottest days of the year. I instantly realised when I looked at the till receipts at the end of the day that we had a successful business.”

The gelateria supplies local restaurants and hotels and has recently been catering events for leavers at Oxford University colleges and the wedding business is returning.

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Asked to choose his favourite, Mr MacDonald said: “I would always go towards the sorbets. The blackcurrant sorbet is just the best on the planet. It makes your toes curl, it has such an amazing flavour.

“They are gluten-free and contain fruit, sugar and water. People can’t believe how I get that taste from those ingredients. Lots of people add some insipid flavouring but I pick up tons and tons of fruit. I use 22 to 24 peaches for a sorbet.”

As much of the fruit as possible is sourced locally and the milk comes from a rare breed of Guernsey cows kept on a farm it took him two months to find. He also uses the finest machinery from Italian gelato engineering company Carpigiani – “the Ferraris of gelato making”.

He added: “I am going to experiment with carrot sorbet and even play around with beetroot. I’m not sure if Oxford is ready for that.”

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