Sweet of the Week: Love on Top at Intelligentsia Logan Square

So this week I am not featuring a dessert. But rest assured it is at least mildly sweet. What is the meaning of this sacrilege you ask? Love on Top at Intelligentsia Logan Square. Duh. It's a latte-like cooler that is too good not to rave about, and far too unique not to give it the proper accolades it deserves. I've always been picky about iced lattes (hot lattes I drink like a fish swimming in a sea of espresso), but if I'm going to dive into the iced latte pool, I'd rather it be at a reputable coffee shop such as Intelligentsia, where I would trust the coffeeologists with my life. I recently went in with the intention of getting an afternoon coffee, per usual, but was persuaded by their counter signage advertising this mysterious Love on Top ditty. Color me intrigued.


This is unlike any other iced latte I've ever had. In fact, calling it that might be a bit of a misnomer. It's more like a coffee cocktail, sans booze. The combination is very simple, just espresso and grapefruit soda. What the what? I would probably never think to combine the two under any other circumstances, and I ordered the drink mostly out of curiosity (remind me never to be a cat in my next life) to see if it would be wildly successful or wildly disastrous. It was the former. The drink looked like a summer shandy, and tasted kinda like it too. The espresso was extremely smooth, mellowed out even further by the bracing grapefruit soda. It had just a touch of sweetness, but it was all about the quenching acidity. The confusing thing was that when I asked for it to go, they served it in a small plastic cup filled to the brim with no lid. So... I had to walk around balancing this obscure drink that looked like beer, while everyone gave me judgemental glances. Oh well, totally worth it.


Love on Top, Chicago Restaurants
(Lots to love about Intelligentsia's Love on Top)

Top