A flavour worth chasing
Laura grew up with a blend of Iranian and Indian heritage in her family kitchen, where meals often finished with something cold and fragrant to balance out the warmth of the spices that came before. Saffron, rose and pistachio ice cream – delicate, floral, distinctly Persian – was the flavour she came back to again and again.
When she left home, she couldn’t find anything like it. So she started making it herself, testing batches in her own kitchen until the balance was right: not too sweet, not too intense, just familiar in the way a favourite dessert should be. She began sharing it with friends. Their reaction was the same, every time – they’d never tasted anything like it and they wanted more. It was that response, batch after batch, that gave Laura the confidence to take it further.
From kitchen to market stall
What started as something Laura made for family and friends became something she was ready to sell. At the time, Laura was working as a speech and language therapist – a career she still practises today alongside running Darlish. Ice cream began as a passion project alongside her clinical work, not a replacement for it and that same balance still shapes how she works now. She began trading at local markets around Hertfordshire, scooping saffron, rose and pistachio for anyone curious enough to try it. The reaction at the markets mirrored what she’d seen at home — people came back, and they brought friends. That grassroots response was the proof Laura needed. In 2018, in her home town of St Albans, Darlish opened our first parlour – a permanent home for a flavour that had, until then, only existed in a kitchen and on a market stall. A second Hertfordshire site followed at Hatfield House, bringing Darlish closer to where the story began and a third opened in nearby Harpenden.
The leap to London
Growing beyond Hertfordshire was a leap of faith. London’s dessert scene is crowded and competitive, and there was no guarantee that a flavour rooted in one family’s kitchen would travel. It did. Darlish opened in Spitalfields, then Bloomsbury – just around the corner from the British Museum – building a following among Londoners and tourists looking for something they hadn’t tasted before. A franchise partnership brought Darlish to Notting Hill, completing what is today a family business with five parlours across London and Hertfordshire: Spitalfields, Bloomsbury, Notting Hill, St Albans, Harpenden and Hatfield House.
Along the way, Darlish has also taken the flavours further afield through pop-ups and concessions, including spells at Bicester Village and Selfridges – each one a chance to introduce saffron, rose and pistachio to a new audience. And the wider world has taken notice too: Darlish has been featured in the Guardian, the Sunday Times, Condé Nast and Time Out, recognition that has followed the same grassroots, word-of-mouth path the brand was built on.
Persian heritage, Western palate
Darlish has become known for flavours that draw on Laura’s Persian heritage while sitting comfortably alongside the classics British ice cream lovers already know. Alongside the flavour that started it all, the menu now includes combinations like lavender and honeycomb, orange blossom, and tahini caramel – built to feel familiar rather than unfamiliar and rooted in craft rather than trend. For anyone who’d rather stick with something simpler, classics like mint choc chip and salted caramel are always on the counter too.
Every recipe is created by Laura and made in small batches on a nearby Hertfordshire farm, using the farm’s own milk as the base for every flavour. Ingredients are chosen with the same care as the recipes themselves – the mint, for example, comes from Summerdown, known for growing English peppermint. It’s this attention to sourcing, as much as the flavour combinations themselves, that shapes what makes a scoop of Darlish taste the way it does.
One of London’s most-loved ice cream parlours
From a single flavour made in a home kitchen, Darlish has grown into one of London’s most-loved ice cream parlours – known today as much for its signature baklava ice cream sandwich as for the saffron, rose and pistachio that started it all. More parlours, more flavours and more moments to share that story are still to come.
The recipe hasn’t really changed since that first batch: take something worth remembering, make it properly and share it with people who’ll come back for more. Ask anyone in St Albans – there’s still always a queue. Every flavour is available to take home too, with tubs to buy in every parlour, and Londoners can get Darlish delivered straight to their door via Deliveroo. Want Darlish at your own event? The Darlish cart is available to hire for weddings, parties and private events across London.