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Rising temperatures mean many of us will find ourselves reaching for an ice cream. Jack Watkins traces the sweet treat's roots and discovers that its popularity owes a lot to London's ingenious residents and Regent's Canal

-  Jack Watkins

CHARLES II has had his critics down the centuries, but he wasn't called the Merry Monarch for nothing and it seems highly fitting that the first time ice cream appeared on the menu in this country came during his reign. In fact, the King himself was probably among the first to savour it, when it was served at a Windsor Castle banquet in 1671, held to mark the Feast of St George. Sadly, the delectable treat was only destined for royal and aristocratic taste buds for some time, simply because, for years after, the difficulty of storing ice ensured it remained a rare luxury, largely confined to estate owners with ice houses.

It's probably fair to say, therefore, that Covent Garden's third annual Cool Down icecream festival (August 19-September 4) is more the spiritual descendent of the so-called 'Ice Cream King' of Victorian London, the entrepreneur Carlo Gatti (1817-78). Born in Ticino, a poor Italian-speaking region of Switzerland, Gatti had headed for Paris at the age of 12, where he became involved in several small business ventures, before finally arriving in England in 1847. He settled in London's Little Italy, an area of Clerkenwell that was home to many Italians escaping the economic and social turbulence of their homeland. At first, he sold waffles from a cart, but, within two years, he'd opened a coffee house in partnership with a fellow émigré from Ticino, Battista Bolla. The shop made its own chocolate, drawing in curious customers by showing the cocoa roasting behind the shop window.