Gamba: the best fine dining restaurant in Glasgow - and the best ice cream too, thanks to Thorntonhall Farmhouse Ice Cream!

Gamba desserts and Thorntonhall Farmhouse Ice Cream. A match made in fine dining food heaven. This luxury ice cream is crafted at Meikle Dripps Farm, South Lanarkshire, and we caught up with owner Micki Henderson for a chat in between her bringing these amazing ice cream and sorbet flavours to life.

We started by asking Micki to cast her mind back to when Thorntanhall first started supplying ice cream to Gamba.

“Now let me think. I must have been supplying Gamba since almost our year dot, and we began the business 18 years ago. Derek is one of my core customers. Others have come and gone but he’s a constant and his customers love his creative take on our ice cream.

“He’s always thinking up new ideas and not long asked me to create a cucumber sorbet, which is really quite unusual, even by our standards. He knows what his customers want and has a good feel for what will work. I can make a small batch to order for my clients, and we have hundreds of flavours, everything from Bloody Mary and tomato and basil sorbets to fresh raspberry ice cream.

“There are no artificial colours, stabilisers or emulsifiers in our ice cream, which is why our Mint Chocolate Chip is not that horrid luminous green colour. We also use whisky in our whisky ice cream, not a flavour. At Christmas time, I enjoy our Tiramisu and Back Forest ice creams, while it’s got to be Tablet the rest of the year. I also love our fresh raspberry ice cream.”

Desserts at Gamba

Gamba ice cream desserts are a big hit with many of you. On our a la carte right now, Soft Chocolate cake with milk sorbet, Amarena cherries, and Sticky Toffee Pudding with Madagascan vanilla ice cream, and butterscotch.

And they come from a long line of fantastic Gamba desserts, like Eton Mess, strawberries and ice cream (or sorbet), Prosecco Pana Cotta, Frozen Chocolate Cake, with passion fruit Sorbet and honeycomb. Raspberry and Stem Ginger Cheesecake with Raspberry Ripple Ice Cream. The list goes on.

Fresh from the cows on the farm

Micki, who’s originally from Zimbabwe, is married to fourth-generation dairy farmer John, guaranteeing only the freshest of ingredients for the ice cream.

“As well as making our ice creams and sorbets from natural ingredients, they’re also made from milk fresh from that morning’s milking, carefully blended, to produce our luxurious silky smooth ice cream with a taste to match.”

Supplying top-quality Glasgow restaurants like Gamba

The partnership between Thorntonhall and Gamba is long-standing for several reasons.

“Our USP is that we can make small batches for quality restaurants like Gamba. Ours is a dense product. We don’t whip up air into it. Some years ago, I did an experiment where I got 10 scoops per litre out of an air-whipped ice cream and 14 scoops per litre out of ours, an overall difference of about 16 scoops per four-litre catering tubs. This was to demonstrate to chefs just how much air can be whipped into ice cream. It is traditionally sold by volume not weight, so people are literally being sold tubs of air.”

Derek has always enjoyed working with Thorntonhall

Derek teamed up with The Glasgow Distillery Company in 2016 to host an evening of ‘seafood and botanicals’ where guests were treated to an extra-special four-course Gamba menu, called G & Sea, which included a Makar and yuzu sorbet created by Thorntonhall Ice Cream.

Said Derek at the time, “Thorntonhall are craft ice cream specialists and have really risen to the challenge of realising my culinary vision.

“I like to be adventurous with flavours and I’m really happy with the end result. They have previously made me a Bloody Mary sorbet which is excellent and this gin sorbet is simply superb.”

Micki and John’s charity work

Away from ice cream making, Micki and John are involved in Strathaven Striders running club.

Their family, friends, neighbours, running pals and customers’ sponsorship enabled them to raise over £3395 for the Teenage Cancer Trust, after completing the 2023 London Marathon and would jump at the chance to run London again.

Ice cream: not just for summer

If you like what you taste at Gamba, and while there’s no farm shop, customers can visit the farm all year round, plus, Micki takes part in fates and shows.

“People can come to the farm for our ice cream but there’s no farm shop per se. I also take part in events and fetes during the summer and throughout the year, like the Camping Show at the SECC, Eaglesham Fair, Eaglesham Beer Festival and The East Kilbride Show.”

You might also be surprised to learn that some of the biggest consumers of ice cream in Europe are the chillier Scandinavian countries.

While Belgium, Portugal and Poland are top consumers, The Nordic countries have also built a reputation for being some of the biggest ice cream lovers, with Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland among the highest buyers per capita in Europe.

“In Scandinavia, ice cream shops are like coffee shops,” says Micki.