At Bar Dolci

The sandwiches we ordered were beautiful. Mine had thick slices of ruby red tomatoes and emerald leaves of basil resting on warm focaccia bread cloaked with mozzarella. His had pale pink slivers of porkloin coupled with a sweet layer of what we guessed was pickled radish. Everything looked simple and fresh and we imagined lunches at an Italian countryside would include such fare. They were as delicious as they looked and when the last mouthful was gone we were satisfied and happy, but we knew that we will not go back for seconds. We were in Bar Dolci, after all, for the dessert. There, the dessert is the main course and everything else is but a prelude. The array of sandwiches and bruschettas is delightful, but they serve the diner the same purpose as, say, the legendary spoonful of olive oil does to the wine connoisseur. In the same way that the olive oil lines the wine connoisseur’s stomach to fortify it against the unwelcome inebriation hours of drinking will bring, the sandwiches merely prepare the tummy for the saccharine feast ahead.

We found Bar Dolci in Burgos Circle in Taguig, that plaza of small restaurants and cafes towards which epicures have lately been flocking. True to its name, the establishment operates like a bar of Italian confectionery. We entered the door to find ourselves in what appeared like a cocktail lounge. As in trendy speakeasies, the slender space was lined with stainless steel counters and glass cases, but which did not cradle bottles of liquor. Instead, they had sweets—rows and rows of rainbow-colored macarons, or the Italian re-appropriation macarone, dainty squares of berry-flavored jelly bonbons and glorious tubs of gelato. Against the stairs was a tall glass refrigerator that advertised pastry lollipops in a plethora of flavors but which was empty. Perhaps they were still baking in the oven and we came too early. The counter across the door was a caffè bar, and the hum of the machines and the subtle smell of the coffee beans heralded cups of espresso, machiatto and affogato.

The upstairs, too, looked and felt like a cocktail lounge. The walls were painted orange and the floor was a dark grey, almost black. The space was dotted with narrow black tables and pops of tangerine plastic stools, and looked inexorably cool and modern. The booth by the window was where we ate our sandwiches, and it was a very chic affair that consisted of two round glass coffee tables framed by three low backless sofas in black velvet that looked impossibly sleek and hip but which were also impossibly uncomfortable. Here lay our quandary: while the sandwiches were lovely and reminiscent of Diane Lane’s sojourn in “Under the Tuscan Sun” and the view of Burgos Circle was not bad at all, we were uncertain if Italian cuisine belonged to a restaurant that had such cold and stylish interiors. Part of the charm of Italian gastronomy, after all, is its sense of the natural and utter lack of affectations. Such meals, we believed, should be had al fresco under the shade of a tree and served on a long, unvarnished wooden table covered with crisp white linen and jars of fresh flowers and pretty heirloom china. The group of high school students across us did not seem to mind, though, and looked right at home. Perhaps as we are now too old for nightclubs, we are also too old for Italian dessert bars.

Regardless, we enjoyed and finished our sandwiches, and soon it was time for dessert. The two main attractions of Bar Dolci’s selection of sweets, the gelato and the macaron, are as fashionable as the restaurant’s interior design. Macaron empires and artisanal ice cream stands appear to have dethroned the cupcake and the yogurt, which were in such vogue just a couple of years ago. I told my friend that I am a devoted fan myself, and used to not let Sundays pass without going to Greenhills to indulge in a Bizu macaron and a cup of Café Publico’s pistachio strawberry gelato.

First, we had the gelato. My earliest experience of the iced dessert was vicarious and through the film “Under the Tuscan Sun.” In the story, Diane Lane plays a recent divorcee who, on a whim, flies of to Italy to find herself. One day, while strolling down the plaza, she sees a striking Italian woman in a slinky black dress eating a cone of gelato blissfully and like she was making passionate love. Lane was struck by the sexual intensity of the sight. I remember being struck too, I told my friend, by the dessert that could inspire such sensuality.

While the gelato is often called the Italian ice cream, the term is actually not apt. Unlike the traditional ice cream, it is lighter and contains less butterfat. The sweet frozen dessert, which is a delectable mixture of milk, cream, sugar, fresh fruit, and nut purees, first gained fame when it was served during a banquet at the Medici court in Florence. Catherine de Medici, the renowned patroness of all things beautiful, soon introduced the novelty to France and the rest is food history.

Numerous gelateries have sprouted across Metro Manila in the recent years, but what sets Bar Dolci apart is its scrumptious collection of flavors. Everyday in their kitchen, gelatos inspired by Italy and the cuisines of the world are created—honey praline, limoncello sorbet, green tea, olive citron, tiramisu, French vanilla, walnut torte and the local buko pandan, among others. All are lovingly concocted from scratch and from natural ingredients. The day we went to dine there, they had around fifteen flavors. They looked exquisite and colorful side by side in their metal tubs and under the bright light. I ordered the torrone, and he had the salted caramel.

The salted caramel, the restaurant’s bestseller, reminded us of Café Publico’s own salted butter taffy gelato. This one though, we agreed, was subtler in flavor. The saltiness and sweetness that were so distinct in Café Publico’s creation were but hints in the Bar Dolci version. It was smoother, too, and melted in our mouths and glided down to our blissful bellies gracefully. Even before we were done with the cup, we decided that we loved its mutedness. Our judgment, however, was merely instinctive and we longed to be intelligent food critics, and so I consulted my students who had vacationed in Italy and experienced the authentic gelato. They told me that the true Italian gelato, while light and smooth, is unbelievably rich in flavor. This knowledge saddened me because I thoroughly enjoyed the subdued salted caramel at Bar Dolci, which means that my taste buds are terribly uncultivated. The closest we have to the authentic gelato in Manila, my students said, is that of Gelatissimo in Serendra.

The torrone gelato, on the other hand, was a wonderful surprise. Torrone is the Italian word for nougat and is a dessert that hailed from Sicily. It is made with honey, egg whites, vanilla and almonds, is sometimes sprinkled with spices and bits of preserved fruit, and is without a doubt my favorite food of all time. The torrone gelato at Bar Dolci was a mountain of vanilla strewn with shavings of almonds and fruit jelly that looked like jewels and was absolutely beautiful. When we had our first spoonful, my friend and I agreed that the gelato translation of the classic Sicilian pastry was genius. To make it chewy like the nougat would be too literal an interpretation, and so instead it was smooth and graceful just as gelato should be. What it took from the nougat was the seamless marriage of the flavors of its various ingredients. 

When we were done with our gelatos, we were already feeling a bit full but still we braved the macaron counter. It was a delight, looking at the colorful circles lined up so neatly, and selecting which to have was torture. I finally settled on raspberry and green tea. He ordered salted caramel to complement the gelato he had previously. We decided to have them with a blackcurrant bonbon and a cup of hot tea, an infusion of cranberries, elderberries and rosehips, to cleanse our slightly exhausted palates.

I fell in love with macarons a bit belatedly when I first saw them in Sofia Coppola’s film “Marie Antoinette,” but I fell in love with them ardently. The hedonistic queen played by Kirsten Dunst is in her boudoir, trying on luminous jewels and luxurious garments, but my eyes were on a table in the background where a pretty tower of pastel colored cookies were resting. The cookies stole the scene. I have never, I declared to my friend, met a pastry more delicate and light and beautiful.

The macaron is first and foremost a French dessert, but was re-appropriated by the Italians as the macarone. It begins with the outer cookie, that rainbow-colored delicate shell that splits at the faintest pressure to reveal a divine interior that is slightly chewy and nutty. Sandwiched by two such cookies is a spread of ganache or some other lush filling. 

Our problem with the Bar Dolci macarons was that they were too intense. The fillings were so rich and flavorful that we did not get to relish the delicate shell and savor its lightness and airiness. The cookie was supposed to melt in the mouth, leisurely and fluidly, before it mingled with the soft flavor of the filling. The raspberry macaron was too tangy, the salted caramel was too buttery, and biting into the green tea macaron was like swallowing a bag of tea whole. We finished all three macarons down to the last crumb, but violently declared that dainty pastries should taste dainty—an unwritten rule in the matter of French patisserie.

The moment we were out of Bar Dolci’s doors, I expressed my distress to my friend. I was uncertain about my review of the restaurant—did I like it or not? I blamed my uneducated palate. I wished that I had, like my students, once flown to Italy to try the genuine gelato, and then hopped to Paris for a box of Laduree macarons. Perhaps then I can develop a verdict that has credence and verity. We took one final look at the establishment’s façade and at the glass windows that were used as a tally board. The amiable barista had explained the Bar Dolci tradition. The new customer’s name is written on the board, and acquires for his every visit a point to his name. We noted the abundance of names and the scores that went as high as 32s and 41s and 60s. There, I declared, are the true food critics—people who do not bother so much with stringent standards and instead trust their instincts. Celebrated writer of gastronomy and my personal idol AJ Liebling himself said that the food critic, first and foremost, should have a big appetite. My primary criterion should be my taste buds.

And so quickly we went back to Bar Dolci, had the barista write our names on the tally board and, the very next day, went back for one more macaron and one more cup of gelato. I had the vanilla and he had the salted caramel, and then we decided that they were good.

Our menu: Tomato basil mozzarella sandwich (P180), honeyed porkloin sandwich (P240), salted caramel and torrone gelatos (P120 each), green tea, salted caramel, and raspberry macarons (P50 each), hot raspberry tea (P90), blackcurrant jelly bonbon (P15)