Brief History of La Dolce Via
Since our inception in 1983 as La Torta Vera ("the true torte"), a branch of Bar Italia restaurant, we have produced specialty Italian pastries and bread from our tiny location at Arco & Taylor. After major remodeling in 2002, we took over the corner space in our building as a café storefront and reopened as La Dolce Via ("the sweet way"), an independent business run entirely by a family team. Shortly after reopening, we added dinner service to our repertoire. In keeping with our standards of excellence in cuisine, we've kept our dinner menu small and precise, and it's only available on the weekends. We believe in quality over quantity.
Our mission is to produce the finest products possible, using the best ingredients we can find. We make everything we can from scratch. We put our money and energy into the products we serve, and not into fancy table decorations and crystal wine goblets. You'll notice that our products speak for themselves, but our storefront is without pretention. In the interests of keeping our prices as low as possible, we aim to keep our approach simple and let our products make a name for us.
In addition to our gourmet Italian line of desserts, we serve an array of American café favorites, including brownies, cookies, and our famous fresh fruit scones, made fresh every morning. (Please note: scone quantities are limited. Order ahead if you want more than 4 scones.)
The Sweet Way = Fresh Ingredients
Everything from our ladyfingers (and every other component of our tiramisu) to our chocolate syrup is made from scratch, using traditional European methods and the finest ingredients. We squeeze our own juice, hand-roll our baguettes, and we even use a local roaster for our delicious coffee and espresso. As much as possible, we source our ingredients from small farms and the highest quality purveyors we can find. The difference between a farm fresh egg and a traditional grocery store egg is easy to appreciate. This is why, even if we go through 30 dozen eggs in a weekend, we'll always buy them from a local farm. Our menu will also change often to reflect the availability of fresh ingredients. Instead of offering something of lower quality, we'll just strike it from the menu if we can't get the proper ingredients.
In 2009, we remodeled again and updated our decor, but our customers were happy to see that we didn't change the core elements that make LDV unique. The kids' play area is still set up with the miniature kitchen, where kids can prepare wonderful plastic pie and french fries to serve to the family during brunch. No cooking skills required!