We are no longer seven years old. We need to get that out of the way early when discussing San Francisco's Top Five Ice Cream Shops.
Here's what that means: We don't care about toppings, mix-ins, family-friendly furniture or specials on your birthday. We don't even care about waffle cones. All we care about -- the ONLY standard we're using for this Top Five -- is the ice cream itself. How delicious is it? How interesting? Is it really worth a special trip, even on a chilly summer day? The answer to that last question for these five is a clear "Oh yeah!"
You might protest, "But my son is seven." When he's old enough to read this publication, we'll tell him where to go for ice cream (and our music and arts editors want to speak to him, too). In the meantime, here's where we recommend for you.
1. Humphry Slocombe: As much as we love Jake Godby's ice cream, we can't honestly say it's always the best in town. He has big hits and a few misses, with more of the latter than our other choices. It's not safe ice cream.
However, Humphry Slocombe is hands down the most interesting ice cream shop in San Francisco and arguably in the entire country, given how much national press he's gotten. Or maybe even the world: this writer did a story on the place for a magazine in Japan.
Not only that, the line is manageable, even on the rare warm days that are perfect for ice cream, and even though the shop's cheerful employees will give you a taste of any flavor, or even every flavor.
We've seen many people ask for a taste of some of the exotic stuff like Salt and Pepper or the intense Balsamic Caramel, both personal favorites, and then get a scoop of something more ordinary like Black Walnut. That's a big part of the shop's appeal: You can taste the wild side and then go back to your vanilla life if you must. But once you've had Salted Licorice, it's hard to go back (though we will, later on this list.)
We love the ice cream at all five of these places, but Humphry Slocombe is the sort of only-in-San-Francisco joint we treasure. There's so much more to this place than Secret Breakfast.
2. Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous: Pastry chef Ian Flores, 34, makes ice cream with more interesting texture than anywhere else we've tried.
Like Humphry Slocombe's Godby, Flores has a background in fine dining, having worked at Aqua here and Spago and Cut in Los Angeles. He moved back to San Francisco when his wife Annabelle Topacio, 33, got pregnant, taking a job at Postrio because "it seemed pretty mellow. Then they closed the restaurant so we said, 'Let's do our own thing'."
Flores changes flavors every day, so it's hard to predict what the shop might have at any time. We adored the Croquantino, with caramelized hazelnuts and hazelnut liqueur in a vanilla base: crunchy in some bites, creamy in others. Cherry Crush, with crushed cherry candies, had the same effect, only a little sweeter.
Then we tried the Bulleit Bourbon and Peanut Brittle and forgot everything else. The crunchy peanuts give it texture, the saltiness brings out the ice cream's sweetness, and you get the smokiness of the Bulleit Bourbon on the finish. The only problem with this ice cream is that it's not available every single day.
3. Delise Dessert Café: Dennis and Eloise Leung met when both were students at the California Culinary Academy. From the beginning they knew they wanted to run an ice cream shop.
"The economy was so bad," Eloise said. "We used to work at Bong Su together. We did the desserts there. After they closed, we decided to do this."
"This" is a highly sophisticated ice-cream shop in a poor location for it: walking distance from Fisherman's Wharf. The Leungs change their flavors every day. If Dennis could invent only flavors no one else has ever done, he would.
"We try to have at least one Asian flavor at a time," he says. "We also always try to have a coffee flavor, and a tea flavor. We do Earl Grey, Thai Iced Tea. We change it up."
He also does several vegan sorbets every day. We were wowed by his Cantaloupe vegan sorbet: so fresh, pure and accurate, as if the fruit itself were transmuted into sorbet. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we liked his intense Four Barrel White Mocha: we didn't taste the white chocolate, but we love that strong Four Barrel coffee.
Delise's single scoops are the cheapest on our list, at only $2.25, but they're also the smallest. The Leungs, who are quite thin for sweets purveyors, also make a variety of beautiful, tiny cupcakes and other treats.
"We'd rather do quality than quantity," Eloise said. "Some people walk out disappointed by the size, when they come from other parts of the country."
Note to tourists: This is San Francisco. We expect to have our Coconut Pandan vegan sorbet and stay in shape too.
4. Bi-Rite Creamery: On a nice day, the line stretches around the corner and sometimes up Dolores Street. And no wonder: Bi-Rite's location is perfect, just down the street from Dolores Park, and its execution is as good as any creamery in town's.
We frankly don't have the patience to wait in the line, so we usually head down to nearby Bi-Rite Market for a pint. Many creameries do Salted Caramel these days, but we haven't had a better one than Bi-Rite's. We also like the Ginger and Coffee Toffee flavors.
If you like soft-serve, there's a separate window and a shorter line. Keep in mind that most people in the longer line have been there before and choose to wait in it again.
5. Xanath Ice Cream: There's only one reason to go to this shop -- vanilla.
As much as we love peanut butter curry ice cream, there's literally no substitute for a good vanilla, particularly if you want to put it on something else, like a fruit pie, or cover it with dark chocolate sauce. It's the standard by which ice cream shops' competence should be measured. With vanilla, there's no hiding behind other ingredients.
Frankly, we think Xanath's other flavors are meh. But Xanath is an outlet of a vanilla-bean importer and has three kinds of vanilla: Mexican, Madagascar and Tahitian. Not only are all three quite good and quite different; together they prove that vanilla really is exciting. Yes, we know that's not exactly a San Francisco philosophy, but when it's directly imported location-specific vanilla, we think it gets a pass.
That's it, these are our Top Five Ice Cream Shops. Feel free to agree or disagree in the comments; we gotta go brush our teeth.
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