‘More than a dessert’: the siblings bringing Afghan ice cream to the UK
The family behind London’s WataniBox are preserving culture and tradition through their homemade sheeryakh
On a sunny Friday afternoon in Hendon, north London, Samim Bagshi enters his family’s new restaurant. Framed photographs of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Mazar-i-Sharif Blue Mosque and other sites in Afghanistan line the walls.
It’s the Bagshi family’s second location in London under the Afghan food brand WataniBox, founded in 2019. Samim mingles with the shop’s customers, wishing them “Noshi jan”, meaning “bon appétit” in Dari, before disappearing behind the counter. Moments later, he returns with a cup of sheeryakh, Afghan ice cream, topped with crushed pistachios and almonds.
“Sheeryakh isn’t something you have only in the summer,” he says. “We serve it seven days a week, all year round.”
On the table closest to the counter sits Samim’s sister Marina, cradling her newborn daughter in her arms. While Samim is the face of the business, it is Marina who manages WataniBox’s logistics behind the scenes. Alongside the fresh servings of savoury dishes including kabuli pulao, mantu and chapli kebab, it is their sheeryakh — crowned the best ice cream in London by the online food publication Vittles in 2023 — that she’s most proud of.
“Sheeryakh is so unique that it naturally creates a little hub for people to come in and explore,” says Marina. “I feel like you can’t get the taste anywhere else, and the way we make it is very authentic. The effort we put into it, it’s very Afghan of us.”
Once the milk comes out of the chiller, it gets poured into a metal bucket that is submerged in cubes of ice. This is then shaken manually until the mixture hardens slightly and is ready to be whisked inside the bucket. According to Samim, the more whisking, the creamier the sheeryakh.
This handmade method has been around for centuries, with some claims that it dates back to ancient Persia in 500 BCE.
“How ice cream was invented, that’s how Afghans make it,” says Samim. “I’ve had ladies tell me it smells like Afghanistan, that it reminds them of when they were 15 years old having sheeryakh in Kabul, so it’s more than a dessert. When somebody comes to have a sheeryakh, they’re coming for an experience.”
WataniBox previously rolled out limited-edition flavours, such as mango and watermelon, but Afghan ice cream typically has its own unique sweet and creamy taste with a hint of cardamom.
“Sheeryakh gets made right in front of you,” says Samim. “We don’t use any machinery. People get fascinated by how quickly it turns from milk to ice cream. And the taste, the texture, the creaminess — that’s what makes it so special. You can’t really bite into it, it naturally melts.”
Samim originally learned the tradition from his father, who had his own sheeryakh shop in the historic Murad Khani neighbourhood of Kabul before the family fled Afghanistan in the early 1990s.
“Sheeryakh is very famous in our family — we’re known for it,” says Samim. “It’s all made one by one. We don’t store it. Our recipe is very clean. It’s just milk and sugar, and the milk is untouched, coming directly from local farms like the milk you would get in Afghanistan.”
When the family arrived in the UK, Marina and Samim’s father went on to set up several businesses, including Afghan Kebab House in 2006, the first Afghan restaurant in east London at the time.
“Growing up, I didn’t think this was what I would be doing,” says Marina, who gained a degree in criminology before switching her career to the family business. “It all happened unintentionally, the way recipes are passed down from one generation to the next. We have such a rich and beautiful culture that we should all try to do our bit to keep it alive.”
The two siblings may be leading the charge, but every Bagshi family member has contributed to WataniBox in some way. “My dad is the one who designed the new restaurant,” says Samim. “During Covid, my mum was out making deliveries to keep up with demand. Our two younger sisters worked behind the tills. Everyone’s been through the good and the bad together.
“We’re so proud of what we’re doing. Anything we do for the business, we do it from our heart, and pay homage to our country as much as we can.”
