So what’s he done to put his mind at rest? Why, he’s launched an ice-cream range, of course, so now he can fully enjoy the mad dog days ahead. This was inspired not just by the obvious fact that a lot of people eat their Gü soufflés and chocolate brownies with ice-cream, but by memories of childhood holidays in Scotland. “There was a brilliant Ital­ian ice-cream parlour near Muirhead called Luigis which served fantastic gelatos – for me that was the pure taste of the seaside, a world away from most commercial confections.”

Now he’s striven to recreate those flavours and packed them into a funky cuboid tub. At £3.99 for 500ml, Gü ice-cream is clearly aimed at the top end of the market, but Averdieck believes it will stand out for more than its radical packaging. “The posh ice-cream sector is totally flat. No one’s eating more of the stuff and there is a sameness in all of the products. They are all very sweet, rich and creamy, in the American style. We wanted to do something slightly different.”

That something slightly different is a range of three flavours – vanilla, double chocolate and chocolate and raspberry – where the richness comes not from cream, but from milk and egg yolks, as in Italian gelatos. This, he says, makes for “a less greasy, more intensely flavoured ice-cream. Häagen-Dazs is typically around 15 per cent fat, but this is 7.5 per cent.”

Technically, it also means it doesn’t qualify as ice-cream at all (which should contain 10-20 per cent fat) but he’s not convinced the public is ready to understand the different hierarchies of ice-cream. I’m not so sure. He admits his customers are “exceptionally curious folk”, and if we are starting to take an interest in single-estate coffees and chocolates, and even, in some circles, to differentiate our Indian Malabars from our Malaysian Sarawak peppercorns, surely it shouldn’t be beyond us to tell an ice-cream from a sherbet (a milky sorbet), from a gelato from a semi-freddo (with egg whites and yolks). And it’s always struck me as unfair that the catch-all name “ice-cream” can en­com­pass a noble product made of just double cream, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla pods as well as its bastard offspring made in the science lab from reconstituted skimmed milk, water, vegetable fat, artificial colourings and flavourings. It still makes me angry thinking of all those childhood ice-cream-eating years wasted on tricolour slabs of chemicals.

Anyway, ice-cream it is for the Gü range, albeit ones made in Italy, to a gelato recipe, by an Italian family firm. And very good they are too. The custardiness of the eggs adds just the right note of luxury, but the texture is light and the taste beautifully clean. The vanilla, a blend of Madagascan and the spicier Tahitian beans, would be my pick, but I’m something of a purist. I’m not a fan of all Gü products – its soufflés, truffles and tortes are exceptional and its fresh mint chocolates are a match for L’Artisan
du Chocolat at a quarter of the price, but I find the cheesecakes, the Sicilian lemon in particular, actively unpleasant. The ice-cream, however, is an out-and-out winner. Here’s to a long hot summer.

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Drinks

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• Top Ten most searched for recipes
• Chalet Chef 2010: the winning menus
• Gin and pomegranate jellies