Wimbledon has served strawberries and cream since 1877. It is the most protected food tradition in world sport. This year the All England Club let an Old Delhi kulfi shop reinterpret it.
Kuremal Kulfi, working out of the same lanes off Sita Ram Bazar it has occupied for over a century, partnered with the tournament on a limited-edition Strawberries and Cream stick kulfi. Co-owner Vishal Sharma has said Wimbledon's team approached them a few months before the tournament. For a shop that began as a Haryana farmer's summer side business, it is a strange and rather wonderful place to end up.
1906, and a man who came only for the summer
The founder was Kirorimal. He farmed in a village in Haryana and travelled to Delhi in the hot months, from around March, to sell kulfi from a basic stall. Friends called him Kuremal instead of Kirorimal. The nickname is now the brand.
For roughly three decades this stayed seasonal work. He would sell through the summer and return to the village. He moved to Old Delhi properly after marrying, and his son Mohanlal joined him once school was finished. Wedding and catering orders started arriving in the 1920s, and the family opened its Chawri Bazar outlet in 1940.
There are two Kuremals, and this confuses everybody
After the founder died, his two sons set up separate shops on the same road. That is why you will find both Kuremal Mohan Lal and Kuremal Mahavir Prasad in Old Delhi, a few steps apart, both legitimate, both descended from the same man. If someone sends you an address, check which one they mean.
Fruit as the container
The early menu was three flavours: mango, rabri and kewra. The shop also ran a stall at the Ramlila grounds every year, which for a generation of Delhi families was the only time they encountered it.
What made the reputation was the stuffed kulfi. The fruit is hollowed, filled with kulfi, frozen, then sliced across so each round is fruit at the edge and kulfi at the centre. Mango is the famous one. Pomegranate has the bigger cult following, and it is the one people who go often tend to order.
The range now runs past fifty varieties depending on the season, including jamun, falsa, imli, sharifa, cheeku and watermelon, alongside kesar pista, matka kulfi and a vegan version. Falsa and jamun are worth chasing because their windows are genuinely short.
Order by season, not by reputation
Mango carries the fame, so it is what most first-timers order and what most photos show. But the seasonal fruit kulfis are where the kitchen is actually showing off, and they disappear in weeks. Ask what came in this week before you order from memory.
The corporate job that got left behind
Vishal Sharma, the founder's great-grandson, left a well-paid job in Gurgaon's Cyber Hub in 2018 to work in the business full time. The family was not initially convinced.
His argument was expansion, and the reasoning was practical rather than ambitious. The original shop sits in lanes that are genuinely difficult to reach. Customers at the Ramlila stalls kept telling the family the same thing, that they loved the kulfi and could not face the trip to Chawri Bazar. The family now runs around eight outlets across Delhi, including Bengali Market, Connaught Place, Hauz Khas and Chandni Chowk.
The original shop is still open. That matters, because the usual version of this story ends with the lane shop closing once the mall counters start performing.
Why this one survived
Kuremal has outlasted competition from other kulfi houses and from every industrial ice cream brand that entered India. It has been served at Rashtrapati Bhavan and at Bollywood parties, which the family mentions, and it has kept selling ten-rupee-scale street desserts in a crowded bazar, which they mention less often and which is the harder achievement.
The Wimbledon collaboration is the clearest measure of where that lands. A 120-year-old family business from Kucha Pati Ram now sits alongside one of the most guarded traditions in British sport, on the strength of doing one thing carefully for four generations.
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