Coffee and Ice Cream in London???
 

Two ridiculous questions but----Where do you get good coffee with cream to go. Also, are there ice cream shops, etc. and where are they located? Thanks

All the coffee chains are ubiquitous in London now, sometimes at the cost of establishments with more character. But you will hardly be able to stand in a street in London without being within sight of a Costa Coffe, Cafe Nero, Starbucks etc etc. Don't know about ice cream - most newsagents stock Wall's or similar, but that probably isn't what you meant.

When I lived in London, I found their ice cream to be rather bad. This was puzzling to me considering the quality of their dairy products. I did find a Baskin Robbins in Windsor which I visited every opportunity! Things may have changed since then (almost 20 years ago). I hope so!

There was a Haagen Daz (sp?) shop near the theaters on the west end about 10 years ago, don't know if it is still there, but I remember being shocked at the line since it was December and very cold...

Marine Ices opposite Chalk Farm tube station is good (London standard anyway) for ice-cream.

To add to bettyk's comment. UK dairy products are some of the best in the world, but the commercial ice creams aren't. It is due to the butterfat requirements - basically it is more like ice milk than ice cream. Generally, the best ice creams are the gellato in some Itallian restaurants or the "home made" ice creams in some restaurants.<BR><BR>I lived in the UK for a while and one of the first Baskin Robbins (which is not the best ice cream in the world!) opened on the High Street in Oxford and the lines went down the block because no one had ever tasted such good stuff.<BR><BR>So - be sure to try Devon/Cornish/Clotted cream, the milk and butter, etc - but skip most ice creams.

You can now buy pints of Haagen Daz and Ben and Jerry's in most grocery stores in the U.K. these days.<BR><BR>Good coffee you can get just about anywhere, except Starbuck's.