iScream in Oxford

iScream in Oxford, 2024/25 Good Food Award winner – Gold Seal.

Our Good Food Awards recognise the hard-working teams who strive for culinary excellence within their field. Chosen for their food quality, service and value, our highly revered Gold Seal, is bestowed upon those achieving consistently high customer ratings/votes over three years, making our Gold Seal a marque of distinction. Read more about us and our awards.

The origins of iScream Oxford go back to a summer holiday in Tuscany over a decade ago when our founder, and gelatiere Graham, had that one big Epiphany moment. Out of the blue, he announced: “I’m going to open a gelateria one day.” Why? Because the village’s gelateria was open from dawn until the wee hours and packed with locals from 1 – 99 years of age dropping in for their daily gelati. Even the craggy-faced old men would stop by for a little gelato on the way back from the pub.

Graham was hooked. He wanted to re-create the purity and intensity of the gelato experience at home. There was no going back to insipid soft ices or the commercially produced ice creams of corner shops. The business idea was lodged.

Of course, the holiday ended and Graham went back to his long-established career in property with his dreams stowed away with the old suitcases. But in 2014, when all the dice suddenly all fell the right way at the right time, he and Jen (his wonderful wife) leapt at the chance to take on a lease in Oxford’s Covered Market… iScream was now a reality.

“If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well,” is a Grahamism that he and Jen live by. So, they enthusiastically threw themselves into taste-testing trips, burned the midnight oil researching the logistics of opening a gelateria and sourced the best local ingredients from organic farms with impeccable provenance and consistent, intense, flavour and quality.

And now iScream is open in Oxford’s foody heaven, the Covered Market, with chosen suppliers who have the same inherent ethical standards and dedication to perfection as Graham and Jen and machinery from the finest, innovative and longest-standing Italian gelato engineering company –Carpigiani – “the Ferraris of gelato making”.

Blimey, are you still reading this? Get yourself down to the Covered Market, watch the gelati being made fresh every day in the lab and awaken those tired old taste buds. We’re not saying your life will change with just one lick as Graham’s did – but you’ll never know ‘til you try.

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iScream in Oxford, 113 & 114 Covered Market, OX1 3DZ