Two hundred and thirty-four people and 32 dogs helped shape Vancouver’s newest gelato menu.
Lava Lunis Gelateria, the pop-up running out of Mount Pleasant’s Kranky Cafe, is rolling its hand-built cart into a one-month stall at Junction Public Market on Waterfront, soft opening August 14 and running to September 9.
The whole project belongs to Kangqi “Ves” Luo, who wears every hat: owner, chef, and marketing manager.
Ves moved from New York to Vancouver in 2023 for a Master’s in Digital Media, and works as a motion and game designer building an indie game solo.
The gelato came from homesickness, she told Noms Magazine.
In New York, Ves worked remotely out of a Williamsburg gelateria, eating five gelatos a day, while friends ran an indie bookstore-cafe hosting pop-ups and block parties.
Missing that strangers-start-talking energy in Vancouver, Ves started a gelato cart to recreate it.
That meant spending 60 days interviewing 234 people and 32 dogs on the street about the flavours they wished existed.
The menu that came out of it runs botanical-first.
Local ingredients like Nootka rose, spruce tips, and elderflower get paired with BC fruit in season, Okanagan Red Haven peaches, nectarines, and wild berries, with fine teas layered in to match each botanical’s aroma.
Two Italian classics never leave the menu: Bronte pistachio, and a fior di latte made with water buffalo milk, which Ves, who is Cantonese and lactose intolerant, chose for its richness and gentleness in the same scoop.
Recent menus back the pitch, running a peach trio of Red Haven peach rosa, nectarine elder-jasmine, and blood peach lavender, alongside vegan Bronte pistachio and karigane houjicha.
The branding stays homemade too: a sunfish-in-boots logo that nods to Kinky Boots, and hand-drawn pop-up signs of peaches sword-fighting and lemons dancing around a bonfire.
At Kranky, the setup is tiny and dog-friendly: 12 seats, 3 tables, and stackable crates that turn into bistro tables.
The cart itself is part of the story.
Ves could not afford a classic pozzetti cart, so it was built by hand over two months at FabLab Mount Pleasant, a first-ever woodworking project rescued partway by Emily Carr woodworker Emma Chen.
The Junction stall exists because downtown friends kept missing the Kranky pop-up’s hours, and the Waterfront container puts chilled botanical gelato next to offices, the cruise terminal, and the train station.
Lava Lunis joins other recently opened Vancouver spots like Viethaus, Maria Celeste, and Angus T.
For more new and upcoming food spots in Metro Vancouver, take a peek at our tracker here, and subscribe to our weekly newsletter here.
Address: Kranky Cafe, 228 E 4th Avenue, Vancouver (pop-up) + Junction Public Market, Waterfront (August 14 to September 9)