Carlo Gatti – Italian/Swiss Immigrant, Victorian Business Entrepreneur, Ice-Cream Magnate

Paris was full of lively cafes, serving all classes of people . These cafes provided coffee, ice cream and light music. Doubtless Carlo would have absorbed not just their atmosphere, but their management techniques and business strategies.

Carlo certainly didn’t settle down to the family chestnut trade and in 1847 at the age of 30 and married, he arrived at Dover.

Battista Bolla, a chocolatier,  had premises at 129 Holborn Hill. In 1849 Carlo joined forces with him and they opened a café-restaurant.

To ensure that he attracted the crowds to their establishment,  Carlo imported a Parisian chocolate-making machine and placed it in the window where he proceeded to operate it every day.  

This did the trick!   People would peer in to see the exotic machine churning out chocolate, and of course,  they would be tempted to go in and try some for themselves!

The year of the Great Exhibition, 1851, saw Carlo established as a pastry cook in the Great Hall of Hungerford Market off the Strand. In only four years he had five shops in the Great Hall and may have started selling his Penny Ice Cream to the public from here.

His Penny Ice was a great novelty.

Ice cream was usually reserved for the rich, but soon London streets were awash with Italian ice cream sellers or, Hokey Pokey men, so called as they tempted customers by saying, “Ecco un poco” – “Taste a little”.

At Hungerford Market Carlo established a Parisian-style café which served coffee, ices and light music. This was a new type of venue for working people and families.

Two events ensured the increase in Carlo Gatti’s fortunes:

Time for Carlo to become – an ice merchant!

It is thought that Carlo had a license to cut ice on the Regents Park Canal, but eventually he imported purer ice from Norway, becoming London’s largest ice merchant.  (The importation of ice from Norway into Britain makes an interesting story in its own right - read about it here.)

The ice was stored in his ice wells along the Regents Canal and delivered by horse and cart to Gatti's many customers.

Carlo Gatti's careful business marketing, strategy and entrepreneurship led to various successful enterprises.

• 1862 –Lambeth: a café-restaurant which became a music hall;
• 1862 – Royal Adelaide Gallery, Refreshment Rooms.
• 1864 – Carlo bought a new house/confectioner’s shop at 52 Strand
• Carlo’s relatives opened famous restaurants at Strand and Piccadilly
• 1867 – Carlo opened World’s Largest Billiard room and café-restaurant underneath the arches, Villiers Street
• 1870 – Carlo bought small farm in Hendon.
• 1870s –Gattis organised prom concerts and pantomimes at Covent Garden
• 1880s – They had mains laid in Strand to light the Adelphi Theatre which they owned.
• 1889 – Sir John Gatti formed the Charing Cross and Strand Electric Supply Company

When Carlo Gatti died on September 6th, 1878 at his home town of Dongio, he was 61 years old. All his London establishments closed for the day out of respect.

Gatti embodied the immigrant’s traditional desire for a new life through hard work, ingenuity and family loyalties.  

Source

• Coffee and Ices: The Story of Carlo Gatti in London by Felicity Kinross (Felicity Kinross, 1991 - now out of print)