Isle Brook Crest

Identity

ISLE BROOK CREST

SLOW FROZEN. NOTHING ELSE.

Statement

WE MAKE TWELVE FLAVORS AT A TIME AND RETIRE THEM WHEN THE SEASON ENDS

Isle Brook Crest makes small-batch gelato in Westport, Connecticut, from whole milk sourced within 40 miles and fruit that comes in by the flat, not the pallet.

The Shop, Plainly Stated

/01Isle Brook Crest opened in June 2019 in a converted carriage house on Post Road West in Westport, Connecticut. Margot Ellison had spent the previous winter retrofitting the space herself, mostly on weekends, with a contractor friend who owed her a favor. The Carpigiani arrived in April. The first batch, a fior di latte, was too sweet. She dialed back the sucrose by 8% and tried again. The second batch was right. That ratio is still the base for everything white and creamy on the current menu.
/02The shop almost did not survive the summer of 2020. It did, partly because Westport residents were home and walking the neighborhood, and partly because Margot started doing pre-order pickups through a simple Google Form before any of the local competitors thought to. By fall 2020, there was a waiting list for the Saturday morning pickup slot. She hired her first employee, Dani Reyes, in March 2021. Dani still runs the front of house on weekends and knows the regulars by name and by flavor preference.

Our products

01 The shop is open Wednesday through Monday, 11 a.m. To 9 p.m. In summer. We serve by the scoop, in a cup or a house-made brioche cone. No waffle cones from a box. From $5.50 / scoop
02 We bring a dipping cabinet and up to eight flavors to your garden party, wedding reception, or corporate dinner within 30 miles of Westport. Minimum 50 guests. We handle setup, service, and breakdown. You handle the guest list. From $18 / person
03 Layered gelato cakes built to order. Two or three flavors, separated by a thin layer of house-made dark chocolate bark. Serves 8 to 24. Orders require 72 hours notice and a 50% deposit. From $95
04 Five small tastes of your choosing, served on a chilled slate board. Good for first-timers who want to work through the current menu before committing to a scoop. $14

Figures

Liter batch size, every flavor, every time

40Mi

Mile radius for all dairy sourcing

Flavors on the board at any one time

Come In This Week

See Current Flavors

Selected items

The board changes every Wednesday. What is listed here reflects the current week's production. All flavors are made in 6-liter batches on the Carpigiani LB 502G. When a batch sells out, it is gone until the next production run. Sorbets are marked dairy-free.

Fior di Latte

The base. Arethusa whole milk, cream, and cane sugar, nothing else. The sucrose ratio was dialed in during the first week of June 2019 and has not moved since. It is the flavor we use to calibrate everything else.

$5.50 / scoop

Valrhona Guanaja Chocolate

Guanaja 70% from Valrhona, bloomed in warm milk before the base is built. No cocoa powder, no extract. The bitterness is intentional. It pairs well with the fior di latte if you want contrast.

$5.50 / scoop

Silverman's Strawberry

Strawberries from Silverman's Farm in Easton, CT, macerated overnight with a small amount of lemon juice and sugar before being folded into the base. Available from late June through mid-August, when the fruit runs out.

$6.00 / scoop

Black Sesame

Toasted black sesame paste ground in-house, worked into a lightly sweetened milk base. The color is a deep charcoal grey. The flavor is nutty and slightly bitter, not sweet in the way most people expect gelato to be.

$6.00 / scoop

News & Announcements

2026-05-28

Why Gelato Has Less Fat Than Ice Cream

People ask this at the counter fairly often, usually while they are deciding between a scoop and a second scoop. The answer is real and worth knowing, because it explains why gelato tastes more intensely of whatever it is made from.

2026-06-10

How We Source Fruit for Seasonal Gelato Flavors

The sour cherry sorbet on the current menu exists because an orchard in Newtown, CT agreed to sell us their second-harvest fruit this spring. If they had not, there would be no sour cherry sorbet. That is how this works.

2026-06-03

How to Pair Gelato Flavors Without Overthinking It

The most common question at the counter, after 'what is that grey one,' is 'what goes well together.' Here is how we think about it.

With respect

Founder, Established since 2019

Margot Ellison

Margot Ellison spent six years working pastry at Aureole in New York before a residency at a gelateria in Bologna changed everything she thought she knew about frozen dessert. She came back to the States in 2018 with a notebook full of base ratios and a refusal to use stabilizer blends. She opened Isle Brook Crest in 2019 in a converted carriage house in Westport, Connecticut. She turned down a wholesale account with a regional grocery chain in 2022 because the volume would have required a batch freezer she didn't trust. She reads seed catalogs in January and plans the summer menu around what actually comes up in the ground.

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