North London Food & Culture

5 Mins With: Chin Chin Labs

The innovative ice cream shop has been a Camden Market staple for years now. We meet founder Ahrash Akbari-Kalhur

Photo: Justine Trickett.
Ahrash and wife Nyisha. Photo: Justine Trickett.

How did you start out?
My wife Nyisha (pictured above) and I got married in 2010 and started the shop a week later: it was our honeymoon and baby all in one. I’m from South Wales, have a legal background and worked in the city before quitting it all and retraining as a pastry chef; Nyisha is a New Yorker who used to curate an art gallery that was swallowed by the recession. We needed jobs and so created Chin Chin, a dream of a place where we can create what we want.

What’s the story behind liquid nitrogen ice cream?
It actually started in Camden in 1901: Agnes B. Marshall was the first person to have been documented pioneering this technique. It’s a really old idea, but we were the first in Europe to use it as a retail concept – now parlours all over the world have taken their cues from us, which is cool as long as everyone knows we started it.

Justine Trickett
In the lab. Photo: Justine Trickett

So talk us through how you make ice cream.
We start by brainstorming and eating out a lot, and take inspiration from everywhere we go. This then develops into how can we turn that smell or that feeling into ice cream.

We have a brigade of young talented chefs that work on these steps with us; on a practical level we cook absolutely everything so when the rest of Camden is quiet we are beavering away making caramel sauce or brownie cookies in the morning.


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There’s then a three stage process: first we cook the ice cream bases, then we age them and finally we freeze the bases with liquid nitrogen, so when a customer comes in we churn it on the spot for them. Every little ice cream is a bespoke creation.

What are the most popular flavours?
Christmas Tree, Strawberry & Hay and Burnt Butter Caramel, which puts all salted caramel ice creams to shame. The truth is vanilla accounts for 50% of sales.

End result. Photo: Justine Trickett
Tasty: end result. Photo: Camden Market

Who have been your most famous customers?
We try not to fangirl them and let them have their space, but I had a moment with Mila Kunis that was excellent, and Idris Elba came in the other day, as did the Duke of York. Also Shah Rukh Khan loves a Brown-wich, while Kayvan ‘PhoneJacker’ Novak is our favourite celeb and has even done a bit of filming with us that had us in stitches. Ted Baker was actually our first paying customer and gave us a twenty pound note for good luck.

Any tips for Chin Chin virgins?
Don’t think it’s a theatre production: we are simply an ice cream shop that makes it a little differently and better, but our focus is making our ice cream the best it can be.

Chin Chin Labs is open daily midday-7pm at 49-50 Camden Lock Place NW1

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