Sketch Reopens In San Francisco

Oh, good.

The soft-serve ice cream that Eric Shelton and Ruthie Planas-Shelton perfected at Sketch before the Berkeley shop closed three years ago always put Dairy Queen's fluted swirls to shame.

We didn't realize how much we missed Sketch until it reopened a few weeks ago, not far from its old location.

One taste was all it took to declare that the ice cream ($3.50 small; $4.50 large) is as marvelous as we remember. Made with Straus organic milk, the vanilla flavor has the same appeal as licking freshly churned ice cream off the paddle. A coffee ice cream made with Sightglass Guatemalan beans tastes like that first sip of a steaming cappuccino.

The couple is also applying the same fine-bore concentration to tiny pastries that are sized, Shelton says, for their toddler. A two-bite coconut macaroon (75 cents) seduces with caramelized sugar and salt; a golfball-size olive-oil cake ($1.75) is so tender it seems a reverie.

In the works are hard-pack ice creams and online sales of sauces and confections. But the ice cream comes first–which is how it should be.

Sketch Ice Cream, 2080 Fourth St. (at Addison St.); 510-984-0294 or sketchicecream.com