Best ice cream in San Francisco: Mitchell’s and Bi-Rite Creamery

Avocado and coconut ice cream at Mitchell's in San Francisco

It’s summer and that means ice cream. I love ice cream. When I was a child growing up in Manila, I looked forward to my daily ice cream cone with Magnolia ice cream’s flavors: mango, avocado, coconut, purple yam, langka, pineapple, and many more.

So when I found out that Mitchell’s Ice Cream in San Francisco serves avocado ice cream, and yes, purple yam and coconut, I became a fan. Mitchell’s is on San Jose Avenue (at 29th Street) in a neighborhood that use to have a lot of Filipino families (most Filipinos in SF have since moved to Daly City, San Bruno and San Mateo south of SF). That’s why Mitchell’s always made ice cream flavors such as coconut (buko), purple yam (ube), avocado, halo halo, sweet coconut (macapuno), and jackfruit (langka). They have standard flavors too (the Mexican chocolate is lovely).

The other fabulous ice cream place in SF is Bi-Rite Creamery on 18th Street in Dolores Park. Like Mitchell’s, Bi-Rite makes its own ice cream using organic ingredients. The flavors are divine: salted caramel (my favorite), toasted coconut, ginger, orange cardamom, balsamic strawberry, to name a few. There’s always a large queue outside Bi-Rite on hot days (same as at Mitchell’s) but the ice cream is truly worth the wait.

Mitchell’s Ice Cream
688 San Jose Avenue (at 29th)
San Francisco, CA 94110
+1 415 648 2300
www.mitchellsicecream.com

Bi-Rite Creamery
3692 18th Street (at Dolores)
San Francisco, CA 94110
+1 415 626 5600
www.biritecreamery.com

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