Ffion churns thirty-two flavours in the back room from Gower milk and cream, and sixteen go in the window each day by a rotation you can see on this page, with the vegan, gluten-free and nut-free ones marked.
Closed now; opens tomorrow at noon (closed Monday and Tuesday in winter)
The parlour
01
The parlour on Mumbles Road: a cabinet of sixteen flavours, twenty seats at the window and the counter, a bench outside facing the bay, and the back room behind the glass where the ice cream is made. One scoop £3.20, two £4.80, three £6.20; dogs welcome with a free dog scoop; open every day in summer.
One scoop £3.
02
Thirty-two flavours made from Gower milk and cream, sorbets and oat-milk ices: the classics (vanilla with real pods, dark chocolate, strawberry), the Welsh ones (bara brith, Welsh cake, honey from Bishopston, Penderyn and raisin), the fruit sorbets, and the ones Ffion is trying this month. Sixteen are in the window each day by a rotation; the flavours page shows today's and filters by vegan, gluten-free or nut-free.
Every flavour is the same price: one scoop £3.
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Take it home: a 500ml tub for £7.50 or a litre for £12 of anything in the window, packed in a cool bag that keeps it frozen for an hour and a half, or any of the thirty-two with a day's notice; a five-litre catering tub for a party for £45 with the next day's notice. Order on the order page and collect from the end of the counter without queuing.
500ml £7.
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The cart is a 1960s Italian tricycle with a pink-and-white canopy, eight flavours you choose from the thirty-two, cones, cups and napkins, and two of us scooping: two hours and up to a hundred scoops for £395, £2.80 a head beyond that, £90 an extra hour. Weddings, birthdays, school fairs and company days within an hour of Mumbles, April to October; the cart page says whether your date is free.
Two hours and a hundred scoops £395; each scoop over a hundred £2.
05
At the table: six sundaes in tall glasses, from a knickerbocker glory to the Mumbles Mess with Gower strawberries, from £7.50, and four Belgian waffles made to order with ice cream and toppings, from £8.50; a hot chocolate made with the same chocolate as the chocolate ice cream; a children's sundae for £5. Vegan and gluten-free versions of most.
Sundaes £7.
06
On Saturday mornings from October to March the back room becomes a classroom: three hours with Ffion, six people at most, how a custard base works, how to balance sugar so it scoops, a sorbet, and two flavours you design, churn and take home in tubs. £45 a head, £25 for a child over eight with an adult, gift vouchers available; private sessions for six for £240.
The Saturday school £45 a head, a child over eight with an adult £25, a private session for up to six £240, a gift voucher for any amount.
Today's wall
Welsh whisky soaked raisins; for grown-ups
In todayDeep purple, sharp, Herefordshire currants
In todayPeanut butter ice cream with a raspberry jam ripple
In todayFior di latte with dark chocolate drizzled in as it churns
In todayThe vegan strawberry: Gower strawberries and oat milk
In todayBanana ice cream, toffee sauce, crumbled biscuit base
In todayLemon curd ripple, our meringue broken through
In todayChocolate ice cream, marshmallow, biscuit, chopped almonds
In todayThe back room
Whole milk and double cream from one dairy at Reynoldston, Gower strawberries in June, honey from Bishopston, chocolate from a maker in Cardiff. Ffion makes the bases the day before, churns sixteen flavours from seven, and the window is full by eleven. When a flavour runs out it is gone until it comes round again.
How we work
One scoop £3.20, two £4.80, three £6.20, in a cup or a cone; a waffle cone 80p more. The same price in July as in January, and the same size whoever is scooping: we weigh a scoop on the first shift of the day to check.
Whole milk and double cream from a dairy at Reynoldston, strawberries from Gower in June, rhubarb from Clyne in spring, honey from hives at Bishopston. Chocolate from a maker in Cardiff. No powdered bases, no colourings.
Ffion makes the ice cream; Mali runs the parlour, the cart and the school. They grew up two streets up the hill and opened in 2014 in what was their grandmother's wool shop, with one machine and eight flavours.
The waffle iron is on from opening until half an hour before close, the sundae menu all day; on a sunny Saturday the queue is out of the door by two and moves in about ten minutes. Tubs ordered ahead skip it.
The cart
Mali found the cart in a barn in Liguria and rode it badly round a car park in Genoa. Now it does about forty weddings a year within an hour of Mumbles: eight flavours you choose, a hundred scoops, cones, cups and napkins, and a flavour made for your day if you want one. The cart page says whether your date is free.
Customers
I check the flavours page before we walk along the front to see if the bara brith is in, and on Saturday it was. Three scoops £6.20, the same as last year. The girls behind the counter let my grandson taste six before he chose bubblegum, which he always does.
The striped cart between the meal and the band, eight flavours we chose at a tasting and a Prosecco and raspberry sorbet Ffion made for us. A hundred and forty guests, £507 all in, and the queue for the cart was longer than the one for the bar.
Filtered the flavours to vegan on my phone and got four in the window today, with the other four and the day they are next in. The oat milk chocolate is better than most dairy chocolate ice cream. Vegan waffle with it is £1 more and worth it.
The flavours page shows today's sixteen from the thirty-two, chosen by a rotation, with the other sixteen and the day each is next in. Filter by vegan, gluten-free or nut-free. The chalkboard over the counter is the same list.
The line at the top of the home page works it out from the clock: every day 11am to 9pm in summer (until 10pm on summer weekends), Wednesday to Sunday noon to 6pm in winter.
Eight of the thirty-two are vegan: three oat-milk ices and five sorbets, scooped with their own scoop from their own end of the cabinet. Usually four or five are in the window; the flavours page says which.
Yes, on the order page: 500ml £7.50, a litre £12, five litres £45, anything in the window ready in two hours, any of the thirty-two next day. Collect from the end of the counter without queuing.
Two hours and a hundred scoops for £395, eight flavours you choose, two of us scooping, within an hour of Mumbles, April to October. The cart page says whether your date is free.
From eight, with an adult, for £25 (adults £45). Three hours on a winter Saturday morning, six people at most, and you take home two tubs of flavours you made.
The flavours page shows today's sixteen from the thirty-two with the vegan, gluten-free and nut-free ones marked. Order a tub to collect without queuing, book the striped cart for a wedding, or a place at the Saturday school, on one form.
