9 Ice Cream Trends San Francisco Needs Right Now

No one would dare argue that San Francisco has a shortage of quality ice cream trends. Over the last three years, we’ve covered San Francisco’s must-try ice cream experiences, the uniquely San Francisco ice cream flavors, the bomb ice cream sandwiches, and more. Heck, we’ve even been so bold as to declare San Francisco “a holy Mecca for ice cream.” When it comes to flavors we’re number one and lucky as hell to live here.

Even with all of our fancy ice cream San Francisco is a little slow when it comes to playing the game of ice cream aesthetics. Sure, we finally have rolled ice cream, fish-shaped ice cream cones, and ice cream filled donut sandwiches, but those things have existed in other cities for years.

Here are some ice cream trends happening around the world that we’d love to see come to the Bay Area.

Jipangi cane cones.

Think “cane” instead of “cone.” The innovation in this ice cream treat is all in the “J” shaped cone which will have you catching drips on both ends. The first U.S. city to import jipangi is Dallas, Texas. Dallas Eater profiled the arrival of the unusual looking treat.  Eater explained, “unlike most traditional ice cream machines, these are fitted with long metal tubes that fill the cone up with ice cream.” Toppings are placed on both ends of the cane.

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Bedazzled cones and garish toppings.

Bistopping is basically king of the ice cream Instagram game in Seoul, South Korea. Not only are the cones decorated to the 10s, but the toppings are often thematically over-the-top.

 

 


Jet black ice cream with a twist.

We’re a little surprised the black ice cream trend hasn’t arrived in San Francisco yet. New York City and Los Angeles have embraced the activated charcoal “goth ice cream” trend earning buzz for shops like Morgenstern’s and Little Damage. What we haven’t witnessed stateside is the dramatic effect of twisting soft serve black ice cream with fluorescent colored flavors like at Thailand’s Demi Concept.

 

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Eight layer cones.

In the United States, we typically tap out at two flavors on a single cone. Structurally, this makes sense because most shops serve scooped ice cream. If you try for three you’re risking a catastrophe. In Japan, they’ve figured out how to stack more than three flavors high using soft-serve ice cream. It isn’t uncommon to see eight layer cones around Japan.

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Adorable ice cream popsicles.

Artisanal popsicles are long overdue. We need something like these ridiculously cute popsicles they sell at Snow Spoon Cafe in Seoul.

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Hong Kong style bubble waffles.

There actually are a handful of places in SF serving ice cream on top of bubble waffles, but no one is doing it like LA’s Yellow Business. The SF bubble waffle game could be stepped up.

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Freakshakes.

Freakshakes are gluttonous milkshakes overflowing with toppings. They started in Australia and have popped up in cities all across the United States – except San Francisco. In cities like London, they’ve been doing freakshakes for so long that restaurants are so desperate for new ways to innovate.  Some places are even putting hamburgers on top.

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Blame Fries Cream

From Sydney’s infamous Bar Luca (best known for having one of most ridiculous burger programs on the globe), here are french fries topped with ice cream, salted smokey caramel sauce, maple bacon, and chocolate. We’re don’t know if it needs to come to San Francisco but we’re weirdly attracted to it.

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This Squid Thing.

Eater discovered this New Zealand treat from Giapo Ice Cream to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Colossal Squid arriving at the Museum of Te Papa Tongarewa. The Eater writer describes it as “humongous, unwieldy, and disturbingly sexual.” We’re not judging.

This post about ice cream trends originally appeared on UpOut.com.

  • March 20, 2018