Get Crazy for La Copa Loca Gelato

La Copa Loca literally means "the crazy cup," and this 5-year-old gelato shop in San Francisco's Mission neighborhood promises to bring the crazy with its unusual flavors and unique sundae creations.

The shop is at the corner of 22nd and Capp Streets, and while it doesn't look too crazy outside, the inside is an explosion of color, from the colorful mural on one wall to the brightly colored mix of gelato and sorbets in the cooler. Along with the cold stuff, the store also offers up paninis and shakes.

Owner Mauro Pilsor has lived in London and learned to make gelato from Italy before moving to San Francisco in the late 1990s. He's gain a reputation of not only making great gelato but experimenting with interesting flavors.

When I visited recently, there were a lot of tropical flavors reflective of the summer season. While there were a lot of traditional gelato flavors with Italian influences like tiramisu and dulce de leche, I ended up getting a scoop of maracuya (passion fruit) and an electric maroon-colored scoop of dragon fruit.

Dragon fruit is popular in Southeast Asia, and the flesh of the fruit actually looks like a grey kiwi with seeds, but the skin has that bright pink color like the sorbetto at La Copa Loca. I don't know if the sorbetto was an exact match of the fruit's taste, but it did have a nice balance of sweetness. The maracuya, or passion fruit, definitely had a passion fruit taste and was also nice because it wasn't too sweet.

Both flavors I tried were sorbetto, which is probably better for my diet, but I'm definitely going to go back to try the gelato flavors.

La Copa Loca, 3150 22nd St., San Francisco. Open Monday, 1 to 9 p.m.; Tuesday to Saturday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. PH: 415.401.7424 www.lacopalocagelato.com

Another gelato spot:
Lush Gelato