Favorite St. Louis Dishes 2011 RFT:
"How do you know that you're in the hands of a master baker? When the only sweetness that you can taste in your
blueberry scone is the natural sugar of the fruit itself, and it is exactly enough."
Read Ian Froeb's review.
Best Use of Leftovers 2011 RFT:
"A few years back, we declared La Dolce Via's Friday and Saturday dinners the city's "Best-Kept Secret (Restaurant Division)." And so they remain.
(You, dear reader, can fix that!) But we're not here today to talk about those secret dinners."
Read
"Best Use of Leftovers".
Best Pancakes 2010 RFT:
"It is an incredibly sad thing that La Dolce Via only serves brunch on Saturdays and Sundays. But let's stop yearning for what we can't have and
learn to appreciate the good things in life. Like that for two days a week, we get to eat brunch at La Dolce Via!"
More on
"Best Pancakes".
Drink of the Week August 12, 2010 RFT:
"Most mornings flow by in a river of low-fat milk burbling with whole-grain cereal, as dull and brown as the Mississippi. Practical. Utilitarian. Sensible. Then there's brunch, which encourages you to sleep in with its lackadaisical hours and suggests you have sweets for the main substance of your meal. Devil-may-care brunch even invites you to have a drink, though it's not yet noon." Read the "Campari and Orange Juice" review.
Best Scones 2009 RFT:
"Precious little separates a scone from a stone. There's that one pesky letter. And something else that has caused so many otherwise-competent bakers to put a tray of scones in the oven and pull out a tray of stones.....Whatever the scone/stone distinguishing factor is, Marcia Sindel has it down cold, and she's not telling anybody. Her scones look round and firm, but inside they're light and crumbly and unmatched anywhere in St. Louis." Read the "Best Scones" review.
Sauce Magazine Review 2009:
"In March, when the sign on the front door flipped from “Closed” to “Open,” there was a collective sigh of relief....What emerged from those two months offline were stone tile flooring, a handmade bar, marigold-colored walls and a revamped kids’ area."
See "La Dolce Via Redux".
Wine List Review Sauce Magazine 2009:
"I must confess that I first thought going to a bakery to review a wine list would be either a waste of time or a major miss. I am very happy to say that both positions were wrong. Yes, La Dolce Via offers beautiful coffees and an exciting menu of lunch, brunch and weekend dinner dishes, but I was knocked over by the creativity of the small but dramatically well-organized list of wines of the world."
Sauce Magazine wine list review.
Best Brunch 2008 RFT:
"Although the decadent brownies and cakes sold at La Dolce Via ensure that the restaurant lives up to its name — translation: "the sweet way" — the corner spot's weekend brunch menu really hits the sweet spot" "Best Brunch" review.
Brunch Review 2008 RFT:
"It's Saturday brunch-time, no better time to spend a couple of hours reading a nice, fat comforting book (David McCullough's Truman works nicely - it's election year, after all), nursing a cup of coffee and hunching protectively over a scone or a plate of pancakes or maybe even a bowl of berries and cream, just to pretend that spring is on its way sooner than later. I can't pretend to have done an absolutely conclusive study, but it seems to me there is no better place in the city to do all these things than La Dolce Via, the little bakery on the corner of Arco and Taylor in Forest Park Southeast." Read the whole article!
Brunch Write-up 2007 RFT:
"Sunday, a shade after noon. I wake up groggily. After one too many beers the night before – I attended my colleague Randy Roberts’ going-away party, after all – my foggy brain can only focus on consuming two things: La Dolce Via’s bottomless cup of coffee and its seasonal delicacy, berries and cream." Read "How Sweet Are You?"
Best Indulgence 2006 RFT:
"You know you shouldn't. You just came in for the scone. But oh, dear God, that blackberry is the size of a golf ball! And it's swimming in cool white cream." "Best Indulgence"