Soft & Swirly Ice Cream Shop

Aim

We are opening our first bricks & mortar ice cream shop in 2026. NO MORE POP UPS, MUCH MORE ICE CREAM!

SO! You might know us already as we've been popping up around London for the past four summers. But let's introduce ourselves properly.

We're Farah & Sam the couple behind Soft & Swirly. We met in 2018 at 40 Maltby Street where we were both working at the time. We bonded over our love for food and wine and  late night Snickers ice cream from the corner shop (big up, Fairdeal Clapton Pond).

Fast forward a year at a friend's wedding in the Czech Republic, we were served a soft serve rosé and an apricot sorbet by a friend of the bride and groom which blew our mind, this man also happens to be a famous tattoo artist.

Soft Serve Rosé at our friends' Magdalena & Jan's wedding, Summer 2019.

At the time, I (Sam), was working as the chef at Leila's Café. Leila had coincidentally purchased a soft serve machine on a whim, to support her dairy supplier, Northiam Dairy (we still use their dairy in our ice cream today).

It planted a seed which sprouted with the nourishing waters of Covid 19.

I knew barely nothing about ice cream making at the time, apart from the little amounts made in restaurants over the years, but I got excited about the possibilities of making soft serve from scratch, using fresh ingredients from Leila's shop next door.

The first soft serve I made (blood orange) was great! The second one (apricot) wouldn't come out of the machine... 

Unfortunately, there are no recipe books specialising in soft serve so I bought a lot of ice cream books to attempt to adapt recipes (La Grotta Ices was one that inspired many). I also read numerous blogs and search through nerdy Reddit forums but none of these sources were really helpful. If and when, any recipes were shared, they were full of additives which didn't feel right. Still, slowly, I managed to build an understanding of the theory and science of ice cream. 

In 2022, after 2 summers serving ice cream at Leila's, Farah & I bought our own soft serve machine and called ourselves Soft & Swirly! When it came down to who was "Soft" and who was "Swirly", Farah got both and all that remained was " & ".

Our first ever pop-up and the beginning of Soft & Swirly at Leila's Shop, May 2022. 

Following a few false starts, our friend Cynthia invited us to a Summer of Sri Lankan Soft Serve at the front of what was to be her restaurant, Rambutan. It was an incredibly fun and un-British summer (heatwave), filled with passion fruit, mango, tamarind & cardamom. Thank you forever to Leila & Cynthia for helping us launch our business.

Cashew & jaggery soft serve ice cream at Rambutan, summer 2022.

What happened next is the common story of a small business trying to make it in London. A succession of pop-ups, events, moving every few months and working other jobs to try and make it through the winter. 

Winter meant no, or very little retail, so during this time our offering diversified with churned ice cream, wholesale, sundaes and pies.

Netil Market, 2023.

Quince bakery, E5 Bakehouse & The Deli Downstairs, 2024.

The evolution of our current shop in the backyard of E5 Bakehouse, 2025.

We're super proud of what we've achieved the past few years, and it would have never been possible without our families, friends and all the people we met along the way: shop owners who generously opened their doors to us, amazing farmers and suppliers, loyal customers, talented staff... we wouldn't be here without all your support!

Now, to carry on doing what we do best, we feel that it's time to open our own place! We've finally found a site on Hackney road where we will be able to make and sell ice cream to our lovely customers and open up to more people.

Classic- ly, this project comes with a hefty price tag, approximately £65 000 and we're hoping to raise about half of it with your help.

The money will go towards building works mainly: flooring, electricity, plumbing and all the furniture to create a welcoming ice cream shop.

Having our own shop will give us the opportunity to expand our offering even further by adding coffee, iced drinks, biscuits and more to our menu.

If you believe in our project, please help us raise enough money to open our shop in the spring of 2026!

This project successfully funded on 9th February 2026