Mara's Italian Pastry of San Francisco, California

Within the North Beach area of San Francisco lies an area known as Little Italy. Lightposts painted in bands of green, white, and red demarcate this area for visitors and locals alike, indicating where some of the best pastry shops (pasticerie) in town may be found. And there sure are a good number of pasticerie in which to indulge- one of these is Mara's Italian Pastry shop.

Located on Columbus Avenue, Mara's Italian Pastry shop features wonderful tiramisu, ladyfingers, biscotti, Napoleons, cheesecakes, éclairs, and cannoli. There are also several styles of focaccia available, such as tomato/basil and olive. Mara's also offers what is reportedly the best gelato in the city, in flavors of pistachio, hazelnut, and coffee. And of course one can obtain a delicious cup of cappuccino, latte, or simple caffe Americano.

The owners of Mara's Italian Pastry hail from the city of Lucca, Italy. Together with their children, they keep the pastry shop open every day and until the wee hours of the night. This draws a large night crowd to the shop, wherein visitors indulge in the various delicacies of the place.

I had originally visited Mara's Italian Pastry shop back in 2002, when I had found it quite by chance while out on an early morning stroll. I had been quite impressed with this little pastry shop stuffed full of all manner of cookie and cake, and the owners had indulged me as I tried to place my order in broken Italian.

Unfortunately, I had never remembered just where this shop was located, and so had missed it on future trips to the San Francisco Bay area. However, on my most recent trip, by sheer accident, I happened to see the shop again from across the street; walking in, I knew this was the same place I had visited several years ago.

Mara's had not changed since the last time I saw it: piles of biscotti littered one of its glass cases. The other glass case was filled with cake slices and other cookies. In the shop window stood yet more displays of cakes, foccaccia, rolls and twists.

I decided to order a cannoli, one of the cinnamon/chocolate twists, and a cup of cappuccino. I sat down at one of the interior tables and took a bite of the cannoli. The filling was good, having an almost whipped cream taste. The shell was quite brittle, though; I wasn't sure if this was how it was supposed to be or if ordering a cannoli at 10PM at night had ensured that I got almost day-old pastries.

I took a sip of my cappuccino, which was quite foamy and heavily caffeinated. I then tried the cinnamon/chocolate twist, which I found even more brittle and delicate than my cannoli. It was a bit hard to eat as it kept crumbling and littering my table, but the taste of the dough was quite good nonetheless. I picked up my large crumbs and ate them up.

I thought about trying some biscotti but was too full. I decided to wrap up my dinner at Mara's and try it again some other time. When I left the place at around 10:45 PM, people were still walking in and ordering coffees and pastries and gelato. I made sure to note Mara's address this time, as I will definitely be visiting it in the future.

Here is some additional information about Mara's Italian Pastry shop:

Hours of Operation: Sun-Thu 7am-10:30pm, Fri-Sat 7am-Midnight

Address: 503 Columbus Avenue (Cross Street: Green Street), San Francisco, CA 94133

Phone number: (415)397-9435