too good

Hot chocolate in Italy is different. Very different. The Italians have taken the phrase very literally and instead of dissolving powder in a cup of water they've gone ahead and actually melted chocolate and put it in a cup.

Hot. Chocolate.

Sunday morning breakfast in Alba consisted of a pastry and a cup of hot chocolate. It was like drinking a chocolate cake. You know those molten tortes that are all the rage these days? Where one nudge with a fork causes the cake to ooze chocolate lava. Well, Sunday's hot chocolate was a lot like that. Except it was in a cup and you were supposed to drink it.

The feeling was sinful. And decadent. And very very right.

When you swirled your spoon in the cup, it was like steering through a silky pudding. It was your own personal cup of warm velvety cake batter - without the raw eggs your mother warned you about.



The shop itself is rather new - the owner's wife told us they'd been there for about a year - so you won't find it in the tourism guides. But it's still filling up with people which shouldn't surprise anyone. Saturday afternoon it had been so packed with adoring fans that we couldn't explore as much as we'd wanted. There's a full chocolate shop and bakery overflowing with all manner of sweet delights and a small café in the back. And it's in the perfect location right behind the Duomo.

But when we got there on Sunday morning there was just one other gentleman reading the paper over coffee. And eventually the owner's wife and daughter came in and we got to talking. Talking a little about her family in America. About our family from Italy. Chocolate. Her happy daughter. Life in Alba.

It was a nice conversation. And a nice pasticceria. And a cup of hot chocolate so nice that neither of us could get to the bottom.

Golosi di salute
Piazza Rossetti, 6
12051 Alba (CN)
www.golosidisalute.com