Over the decades thousands of families treated their children to a visit to one of north London's first ice cream parlours.
Marine Ices traces its roots back to the early 30s when it was founded by Italian immigrant Gaetano Mansi.
He opened his gelateria in Haverstock Hill, Chalk Farm in 1931 and it became a neighbourhood favourite.
Mr Mansi was originally from Salerno on Italy’s Amalfi Coast but left as a boy and lived first in Bermondsey before running grocery shops in Drummond Street, Euston in the 1920s.
It was there he first experimented with making fruit sorbets with unused fruit and ices from family recipes. They proved so popular he opened a dedicated ice cream café which he originally named Mansi’s.
This modest parlour evolved into a north London institution and, in 1947, Gaetano's relative Aldo Mansi redesigned the shop.
The cabinet maker altered it to resemble a ship’s bridge - complete with distinctive black and orange décor and portholes.
The nautical theme gave the café its name - Marine Ices - and selling 'real Italian gelato' including ice-cream sundaes it became popular with generations of Camden families.
The business expanded to a restaurant and ice-cream cafe, while also supplying ices and sorbets to other restaurants, theatres and leisure venues.
Notable clients included the Royal Opera House and the Coliseum.
Different generations of the Mansi family ran the business at the same site until 2012, when the ice cream business was sold to fellow ice cream making family the Myatts, and Ponti’s restaurant group took over running the Chalk Farm restaurant.
But in 2014 the Mansi family sold the building which was bulldozed to make way for a residential development - Marine Apartments - with a Tesco Express where gelato was once served.
The iconic Marine Ices then moved a few doors up in Chalk Farm Road to open an ice-cream shop.
That in turn closed around the time of Covid and today Marine Gelato is made in Leeds by owners Northern Bloc who supply it nationwide to restaurants, theatres and shops.
Those who dip their spoon into the tub could hardly imagine that the name of the sweet treat harks back to a quirky ship-like ice-cream cafe still remembered by north Londoners for childhood memories of sticky fingers and the taste of "real Italian gelato".
One on a Facebook page sharing memories of north London wrote: "Best Water Ices around back in the 70's. My mum used to take me there if I had a miserable day at school."
While another wrote: "So much part of my childhood, so many family meals and wonderful ice cream sundaes."
Fashion designer Bella Freud is perhaps typical of the personal memories attached to the venue - recalling visits with her painter father Lucian Freud.
In a Facebook post she wrote: "My early memories of getting to know my father took place mostly in restaurants.
"As a tiny child I remember mum taking my sister Esther and I to meet him in Marine Ices in Chalk Farm, an Italian family-run place which specialised in homemade ice cream.
"Used to quite frugal repasts, I still remember decades later the towering luxurious Knickerbocker Glory that I only ate a fraction of. When I’m really hungry I go back in my thoughts and polish it off."
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