Affogato is the treat of the summer. Here are 4 spots doing it well.

A friend of mine has a rule: If affogato is on the menu, she’s absolutely ordering it. That came to mind on a recent afternoon when, amid a maze of moving boxes and in need of a caffeine jolt, I sought out one of the coffee and ice cream treats. I landed at Smith+Canon, an award-winning ice cream shop that serves fresh roasted coffee, too, for an afternoon affogato.

In its simplest form, the Italian dessert consists of espresso poured over ice cream or gelato. The word “afogatto” translates to “drowned.” But in Denver, dessert aficionados and coffee connoisseurs put their own spin on the treat.

Your portal to la dolce vita is through Door 5 at Colorado Mills mall in Lakewood where you’ll find the Smith+Canon counter. Here, owner Curt Peterson, a self-professed “coffee nerd,” has curated his small-batch ice cream menu so that a half dozen flavors are perfect for drowning in coffee. The beauty of affogato is it’s not tied to a single season.

Smith+Canon (14500 W. Colfax Drive, Lakewood; smithcanon.com) offers a menu of popular pairings, like a salty, toffee butterbrickle served hot with espresso or cold with Whiskey Barrel coffee.

I order a house favorite: The Foxy Brown, a cinnamon cheesecake ice cream paired with a cinnamon nitro cold brew. It gets better, richer and more nuanced with each sip as the sweetness of the ice cream and the bitterness of coffee meld together, neither overpowering the other. Here are three more Colorado spots where affogato is on t.