Sweet of the Week: Limoncello at Dolce Italian

France gave us creme brulee. Now Dolce Italian gives us the Italian equivalent with their new burnt limoncello dessert. A true stroke of genius, the limoncello creation on Dolce Italian's dessert menu is a novel way of reinventing a storied dessert that has managed to transcend cuisines. The slick new River North haunt, displaying a true penchant for refreshing Italian fare, takes two familiar items in their own right, limoncello and creme brulee, and manages to make them each unique and exciting again. 

 

Really, dessert is the best place for limoncello. The viscous Italian liquor tends to be treacly and thick, more like sugary lemonade than an aperitif or digestif. Thus, it plays naturally well with dessert, which necessitate less sugar due to limoncello's innate sweetness. At Dolce Italian, they thicken the limoncello even further into a custard, lining it in a ramekin and gilding it with a thin layer of sugar. It all gets a light torching to caramelize the sugar and create a crackly shell, while retaining the bright, sour-sweet tang of limoncello beneath. A few fresh berries go atop the dessert for a final fresh touch. 

- Matt Kirouac