There’s only one place to go to get great ice-cream, and it’s a family affair too writes Sunita Rappai

AS you enter Marine Ices on Haverstock Hill, there is a photograph towards the left-hand side, past the luscious display of ice-creams in the front – if you can tear yourself away – that speaks volumes.
Five sombre men, all obviously from the same bloodline, in suits and hairstyles that smack of circa 1970-something, pose for the camera as the young man in front clutches a trophy. A small plaque below says: the Mansi Family.
Two generations of the Mansi Family are in that photograph. Brothers Aldo and Anacleto Mansi, known universally as Cleto, and their sons, Dante and Gaetano and Gino – the latter three the third generation of Mansis to take their place on the Hill today.
The qualities that distinguish this legendary Chalk Farm restaurant are in that photograph. Good, solid Italian stock. A charming old-fashionedness. And an unwavering belief in the importance of family values.
For nearly 75 years, Marine Ices, founded by Gaetano Mansi, a first-generation Italian immigrant in 1934, has taken pride of place in its corner of the Hill, tantalising generations of north Londoners with its uniquely Italian combination of divine ice-cream and home-made pizza and pasta.
So much so that the simple family-run institution has just been honoured with yet another award, this time from a Sunday newspaper. For Dante, 52, who runs the restaurant with brother Gaetano and cousin Gino, the answer is simple.
He said: “We provide excellent food at a very fair price. It is a family restaurant with traditional Italian food. We make our own bread, our own sausages, our own ice-cream. We like families and they seem to like us.”
It is for their homemade ice-cream that the Mansis are perhaps best known, which is not to put down the range of
traditional pizzas and pastas on offer. Now their traditional Italian bombe ice-creams – from amaretto to coffee and chocolate – grace the menus of restaurants from Chez Gerard to Italian chain restaurants like Pizza Express and Strada.
Brother Gaetano, 46, – quieter than his more assertive older brother – is in charge of the ice-cream and it is obviously a labour of love. He still remembers the range of flavours introduced by Cleto in the 1960s, when he says, the business really took off.
Gaetano said: “We had mango, rum and butter, peanut crunch, crème de menthe, maple walnut. I used to come by after school and help in the restaurant and Dante would deliver icecream to the West End.”
Today there is an ice-cream factory above the shop – introduced by the technically minded Gino – that churns out more than 800 litres every hour.
Rum and butter and maple walnut have disappeared but old favourites like mint choc-chip and strawberry remain, with newer flavours like amaretto and coconut reflecting today’s more ambitious palates.
But it is simple vanilla and chocolate that dominate the sales, as they have always done. Gaetano is now experimenting with a darker, deeper chocolate flavour, again, he says, in line with modern tastebuds.
On the restaurant side, it is the simple tomato and cheese pizza – the margherita – and spaghetti bolognese which are most popular with customers. This says a lot about both Marine Ices and its devoted following.
In the face of chain restaurants with their generic menus and American ice-creams so loaded with cookie dough, nuts and fudge and other bits that the ice cream is almost a by-product, this is a place that has stuck to the basics – simple, quality ingredients, a warm and friendly service and unbeatable food.
More than anything, it knows where its heart is. Gaetano Mansi Sr who set sail from Ravello in southern Italy all those years ago with a dream of his own ice-cream parlour in the bright lights of London would be very proud indeed.