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Food & Drink

A mad new ice cream shop just opened under SF’s most famous building

Located at the foot of the Transamerica Pyramid, MadLab serves suitably over-the-top ice cream, gelato, and shave ice.

The image features a swirl of whipped cream topped with colorful sprinkles and small candy pieces, set upon a deep red dessert.
Ice cream cone-shaped sprinkles and yuzu whipped cream top a signature dessert called the OG Itameshi at MadLab. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
Food & Drink

A mad new ice cream shop just opened under SF’s most famous building

Located at the foot of the Transamerica Pyramid, MadLab serves suitably over-the-top ice cream, gelato, and shave ice.

The creations at MadLab, a dessert shop that opened Tuesday, look straight out of a Willy Wonka fever dream. Imagine a milkshake capped with a slice of frosted cake; ice cream crowned with a macaron and flakes of 24-karat gold; scoops of pistachio gelato buried under light-as-air Japanese shave ice and smothered in sweetened condensed milk before being gilded with salted caramel, gummy bears, and a cloud of cotton candy. 

Sugary mastermind Soraya Kilgore, a pastry chef who previously worked at BLT Steak and James Beard Award-recognized Alter, owns and operates MadLab with her husband, chef Bradley Kilgore. The couple, who recently moved to SF so Bradley could open two restaurants, Cafe Sebastian and Ama, started the MadLab concept in Miami, where it operated for two years. Now it’s been reborn at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid. Soraya says she wanted to do more than plated desserts. “MadLab was a way for me to branch out,” she says. “I wanted to do something whimsical, something more my style.” 

Two people enjoy desserts, with one sipping from a milkshake and the other eating with fingers. Colorful bowls of treats and a bold abstract art piece are present.
Chefs Soraya, left, and Bradley Kilgore share desserts at the MadLab ice cream counter — specializing in desserts combining gelato and Japanese shave ice called kakigori — which recently opened adjacent to the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco on Tuesday, December 10, 2024. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

As part of that, the duo brought in a Hoshizaki ice machine, prized for producing the oh-so-fluffy Japanese shave ice called kakigōri, which can be layered into desserts or served on its own. 

While MadLab has set menu items like Zen Matcha, made with coconut matcha syrup and preserved strawberries, it also allows customers to build over-the-top creations that layer a base of gelato, ice cream, or soft serve with shave ice, syrups, and a range of toppings. Flavors like cajeta, stracciatella, and matcha with Granny Smith apples will rotate seasonally, sourced from local vendors, though the owners would eventually like to produce ice cream and gelato in-house. 

A pair of gloved hands holds a golden bowl filled with fluffy, white shaved ice, with more ice being sprinkled from above.
Chef Bradley Kilgore adds kakigori shave ice to a bowl of gelato. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
A golden bowl holds a layered dessert with pink shaved ice, strawberries, cream, and cubes of sponge cake, topped with fluffy cotton candy and blue flower petals.
A signature strawberry cheesecake dessert — featuring vanilla gelato and Japanese shave ice called kakigori with an assortment of toppings like fresh and freeze-dried strawberries, strawberry-hibiscus syrup, and cotton candy. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard

The array of accouterments customers can choose from to garnish their desserts is where MadLab takes it to the next level. In addition to two seasonal syrups — currently peach and raspberry-yuzu — the shop offers nearly 30 toppings of both sweet and savory varieties, from rainbow sprinkles and Cinnamon Toast Crunch to yuzu whipped cream, spicy pickled Fresno chile caramel, and berry furikake. There’s also the option to choose a sprinkle of salty potato chips.

What if you’re feeling more bitter than sweet? “There’s always hot coffee,” Bradley says, or a bit of both: an affogato.