FOOD & DR INK
IMAGES Gelato recipes at Jack’s change every day; Jack put a huge amount of time and effort into sourcing the new, biodegradable bamboo gelato spoons
firing documents all over the city. You’d have your messenger bag and your radio, and you’d hang out on Parker’s Piece while waiting for jobs – there were, like, 30 of us… you’d wake up in the morning, radio in – 2-8, ready to work – and then they’d tell you where you’re going and you’d sprint across town. I definitely have a long history with bicycles,” he laughs. After Jack’s A-levels, the impulse to travel kicked in: a gap year and trip to California led him up the West Coast of America to Vancouver, where he decided to stay for a season in Whistler – which is where the chef first entered a kitchen as a professional. “I was just doing it as a means to an end to fund my snowboarding,” he says, “but it was better than washing cars and cleaning hotel rooms. Working in a car wash in Canada, in the winter, it’s… hard work,” he smiles. “When I did come back [to the UK] I carried on working in kitchens, then decided to take it seriously and started working in better places. Then I opened Cotto with Alison, sold it to Hans and Ruth a few years later and moved to Paris – and then came back two years after that when Mattie, my daughter was born.” And it was then, ten years ago, that Jack started wondering if creating and selling gelato might be easier than working in restaurants. “It is now, but it wasn’t for the first few years,” he says. “In a restaurant you might work 80 hours, but you never work through the night – and in the early years of [Jack’s Gelato], I’d do countless all-nighters – even double all-nighters. I did a 54-hour shift once… I had wholesale orders, and it just needed to be done.” For the next few years Jack’s custom ice-cycle became a fixture at street food events and weddings, and part of the routine of a sunny weekend in Cambridge was checking Twitter to find out where he’d be scooping. Although the work was back-breaking, it was Jack’s continual presence – and, of course, commitment to creating excellent products – that led to him getting the lease on Bene’t
Street when it came up in 2017. “The estate agents basically wrote us off, but the college that owns it gave us the lease because the bursar knew us from around Cambridge,” he says. “The estate agent was like: ‘You can’t just do ice cream – there’s never been a shop in Cambridge that’s only done ice cream and survived. Are you sure you don’t want to do waffles?’” Thanks to the hard work of Jack and his team, the business is thriving, all year round: warmer months see queues of ice- cream lovers stretching down the street or dropping by for a late night scoop to finish off an evening out, while cooler months see fewer, but just-as-dedicated fans of frozen treats dropping in to the shop for a cone or cup of hot chocolate. The relaxed yet purposeful atmosphere encountered in the shop is mirrored in the business plan: Jack’s never taken investors or partners, preferring to grow it himself, quietly, steadfastly, and enjoying the flexibility offered by working on his own. “Any investor is naturally going to be bottom-line driven, and I wanted to be able to close for a few days without running it past anyone,” he says. “Plus if I had an investor, they’d be like: ‘Right – where are we going to open next? We’re going to open one in Oxford, we’re going to open one in London, one in Bath – and I don’t want that. We will do more stuff, but I’d prefer to open a shop in…” he looks around the room: “Copenhagen,
“In the early years I’d do countless all-nighters. I did a 54-hour shift once”
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