The true taste of Anglesey

Tony Green and wife Lyn set up the Red Boat in spring 2009 in the town of Beaumaris. Within weeks customers were queuing down the street, because their gelato really is different from run-of-the-mill ice cream.

They make gelato in a whole range of flavours such as strawberry, mascarpone and balsamic vinegar flavour, sea buckthorn and orange flavour, mulled wine sorbet or indeed a gin and tonic sorbet made with fresh lemons and Gordon’s gin.

Tony hasn’t looked back since he travelled to Bologna to an ice cream university where he learnt the secrets of Italian “gelato” making - an art that goes back centuries. He returned to Beaumaris to launch an ice cream parlour that’s rapidly become a tourist attraction in its own right.

“All the ice creams have been freshly made by hand that day,” says Tony. “As well as the traditional flavours, we are forever trying to challenge people’s palates and introduce new concepts.”

No fewer than eight of the world’s top 50 restaurants use salt from Anglesey, including Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck in Bray and El Bulli in Spain.

Halen Môn have branched out from their pure white salt into ever more exotic flavours. You can buy them all from their shop at Brynsiencyn, including the vanilla salt beloved of Barack Obama’s favourite chocolatier, Fran’s Chocolates of Seattle. Not to mention their celery salt, and their smoked sea salt.