The Best Ice Cream Around Totnes and the Dart Valley

Devon dairies have been making excellent ice cream long before the trend for artisan gelato arrived from Italy, and the Dart Valley still produces some of the best in the country. Whether you prefer a slow-churned cone from a local farm, a proper Italian-style scoop in the town centre, or a beach-side cup after a coastal walk, the area has serious options. Here are the names worth tracking down.

Delphini’s Gelato, Totnes High Street

Delphini’s makes its gelato and sorbetto fresh on the premises every day, using milk from local dairies and ingredients sourced as close to home as possible. The flavour roster rotates with the season, but you can usually find a clean pistachio, a deep dark chocolate, a properly fragrant lemon sorbet, and a couple of vegan options that taste like more than an afterthought. The shop sits on the High Street near St Mary’s church and is the obvious stop after a morning of Totnes pottering. The team will let you sample before committing, which is just as well given how often the unusual seasonal flavours steal the show.

Salcombe Dairy, Shadycombe Road

Salcombe Dairy has been making ice cream for more than forty years and is the standard against which other South Devon ice creams are measured. They use their own milk, churn in small batches, and skip all artificial colours, which is why the strawberry actually tastes like strawberry and the vanilla like real vanilla pods. Visit the dairy itself behind Salcombe harbour to sample the widest range, or look out for Salcombe Dairy tubs in farm shops and cafes across the South Hams. The clotted cream vanilla is the benchmark scoop, properly dense and rich, while the salted caramel has the depth that supermarket versions rarely manage.

Langage Farm

Langage Farm sits just outside Plymouth but supplies its multi-award-winning ice cream across the Dart Valley. The herd of around 250 cows lives on the farm, and the dairy has been making proper Devon cream and ice cream since 1980. Look for their tubs in farm shops, garden centres, and many local restaurants. The clotted cream vanilla is a particular benchmark, and the rhubarb crumble flavour, when it appears, deserves a small detour. Their commitment to keeping the supply chain genuinely local, with cows, dairy, and creamery all in one place, is unusually rare.

What makes Devon ice cream different

South Devon’s pasture and the high butterfat content of Jersey and Friesian milk give the local product a richness that is hard to replicate. Add small-batch production from people who genuinely care about their farm or shop, and you get ice cream that tastes of where it came from.

Granny Gothards

Granny Gothards is a small artisan operation now based in Cullompton but widely stocked across South Devon’s better cafes and restaurants. The hook is the use of the first morning milking from Oak Park Dairy, blended Jersey and Friesian, which gives the ice cream an almost custard-like depth. Their sorbets are also serious, especially the Sicilian lemon and the British strawberry in season. Many Totnes-area restaurants offer Granny Gothards as their dessert option, which is usually a good sign for whatever else is on the menu.

Riverford Dairy at Ben’s Farm Shop

The Riverford Dairy team produce their own organic ice cream using milk from the farm at Wash Barn, and you can pick it up at Ben’s Farm Shop at Wash Barn between Buckfastleigh and Staverton. The vanilla is exceptional, made with real Madagascan vanilla pods rather than essence, and the seasonal flavours often turn on whatever fruit is being picked on the farm at the time. Their summer raspberry ripple has a proper jammy depth, with whole fruit folded through rather than syrup.

Ice cream on the coast

For visitors heading from Totnes down to the coast, a few stops are worth planning around. Dartmouth’s waterfront kiosks scoop Salcombe Dairy and Langage Farm, and the Greenway tea room serves a small but well-chosen selection. The Beach Hut at Slapton Sands and the cafe at Blackpool Sands also serve good local ice cream with views that frankly add another flavour all on their own. Even the smaller village shops along the Dart often stock a tub from one of the producers above, which is handy after a long walk.

Vegan and dairy-free options

Delphini’s leads on this in Totnes, with rotating vegan flavours often using oat or coconut milk bases. Salcombe Dairy has expanded its sorbet range, and many cafes around the South Hams now stock at least one dairy-free option from Granny Gothards or similar artisan suppliers.

Pairing ice cream with a day out

The traditional Devon move is to take a cone for a walk along the Dart, ideally finishing at Steamer Quay or the Vire Island bench by the bridge. A more ambitious route ties together Totnes for Delphini’s, then a drive over to Salcombe for the dairy itself, with stops at Blackpool Sands or East Portlemouth along the way. Either way, summer in the Dart Valley quietly revolves around a really good scoop, and the producers above make that easy to find. Winter is no time to give up either, with the better cafes keeping ice cream on the menu year-round, alongside a proper hot drink for balance.