Jack Van Praag is sitting in the shade of a mirabelle tree on his 13-acre farm just north of Cambridge. Dotted with beehives and fledgling rows of rhubarb, cucumber and sweet potatoes, the pastoral scene is a world away from the delirium of Jack’s Gelato, the ice cream shop that he opened in central Cambridge in 2017.
Situated in a 19th-century townhouse beside The Eagle pub – where Crick and Watson first announced their discovery of DNA’s structure – and opposite the rose-filled garden of St Bene’t’s Church, Jack’s Gelato has become a culinary institution in the city. It’s open year-round, even through the winter, and until midnight on weekends. Van Praag and his 35-strong team serve around 20,000 people a week and dish out thousands more scoops on June evenings at the university summer balls. Customers have included David Letterman and Nigel Slater, who ordered the passion fruit sorbet and then returned for a second helping. So high is the demand that Jack’s Gelato has developed its own queue-jumping web app to help alleviate the crowds. In 2020, Van Praag opened a second, slightly more sedate store on the other side of town, nestled in the medieval artery of All Saints Passage.
A scooper serving gelato at Jack’s Gelato on Bene’t Street in Cambridge © Charlotte Griffiths
