The sweet taste of Italy

Before you step into Dolcemente Italia, we suggest you curb your enthusiasm in advance. A tad (it won't hurt, really). But, say, you don't do that. You enter the unassuming pattisserie, and your eyes take things in before your taste buds can - yoghurt and biscuit, yoghurt between biscuit, yoghurt in lollipop, yogurt in miniscule wafer cups.

Italian gelato (Belgian chocolate) with kit-kat and white chocolate syrup. Pic/Sowmya Rajaram

Read kid-in-candy-shop mayhem. Bull-in-china-shop chaos. Dolcemente Italia sticks to the basic flavour of yoghurt, and does really great things with it. Who, you'd think, needs more yoghurt in the city? Well, we don't know about the rest, but Dolcemente Italia you definitely need.

We started out with their Mini Desserts (Rs 55) - tiny wafer cups filled with bite-sized yoghurt and topped with strawberry, mint, mango and chocolate icing. One bit of these wonders and you'll realise that this little pattisserie knows it's flavours.

The crunch of the wafer, the playful tang of the yoghurt and the taste of the toppings (not synthetic-tasting, thank god) will give your mouth a lot to mull over when it comes to tastes and textures. Make sure all your cavities are taken care of before you bite into things here - the chilled yoghurt knows no mercy.

Sicilian stick, which has yogurt pressed between biscuit and sponge cake. Pic/Anita Anand

We settled into the cafe inside, full of white tables surrounded by white chairs (were they really little, or were we just carried away by the cuteness?). We had a Siciliano stick next (Rs 130) - yoghurt pressed between biscuit and sponge cake, and happily so (it had a smiley). Do ask for some melted Belgian chocolate to go with it. Dip the dessert into the chocolate and, again, and you have that refreshing, tingling mix of creamy yoghurt, cake and hot chocolate.

After we were done sticking our noses on the glass over the seven-inch long, slim cylindrical wafer rolls covering - surprise - yoghurt (Rs 70), we asked for a helping of gelato and yogurt with toppings (Rs 120 for a medium cup). The pattisserie offers delicious syrups - raspberry, strawberry, mango, white chocolate, blueberry to name a few.

Dolcemente Italia in Bandra (West). Pic/Anita Anand

We opted for yogurt with generous blueberry syrup, Oreo cookies, cherries, apple and cheerios. The cheerios were slightly soggy, but we'll let that be, because th combination was explosive. The syrup complemented the blueberries, cherries and the apple - and the fresh yoghurt was a winner, sloshing around merrily. Try their Belgian chocolate gelato with white chocolate syrup, watermelon and papaya, too. It doesn't come cheap, but you won't mind being frozen to the bone.u00a0