Amy ScattergoodHappy World Nutella Day. Nutella is an addiction more clandestine than the addiction to ordinary chocolate, since people get so involved in its sourcing that it's often smuggled back from foreign countries, and it's just enough like junk food to be slightly embarrassing, particularly if you're not Italian. True devotees of the chocolate-hazelnut spread have been known to hide their jars of Nutella under sinks, in clothes hampers, in the empty wells of the car trunk where that spare tire should probably be. Troubling? Well, at least we're not doing that with the Glenlivit. But scan the menus of hip bakeries, food trucks, neighborhood eateries and even a certain 2 Michelin star L.A. restaurant, and you will find that fans of Nutella are everywhere. Turn the page for our Top 10 places to score your Nutella fix. You can always eat it out of the jar.
The Grilled Cheese Truck's Nutella-banana sandwich; Credit: Karin Schoen-Wasler
10. The Grilled Cheese Truck: This mobile food eatery serves its Nutella on brioche, with roasted banana puree and marshmallow. If you ask, they'll add peanut butter too.
Follow them on Twitter @grlldcheesetruk.
9. Terroni: After a dinner of one too many pizza slices, you may nonetheless need to opt for some dessert here, particularly the Nutella fritters stuffed with Nutella gelato. If that's too much for you (coward), then have a Nutella biscotti with your demitasse of espresso. Lucky you, there's a big jar of them permanently installed at the end of the marble bar.
Terroni: 7605 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles; (323) 954-0300.
Acadie's Nutella crepe; Credit: A. Scattergood
8. Acadie: The crepes at Acadie, the Santa Monica creperie owned by Frenchman Thierry Boisson, are made for you while you wait, swirled across the pan by a rozelle, a jar of Nutella (which the shop prominently displays and sells) waiting as well. Acadie's Paris crepe is a sweet whole wheat crepe spread with Nutella and dusted with powdered sugar. You can also order it with whipped creme and slices of bananas.
Acadie: 213 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica; (310) 395-1120.
7. La Bottega Marino: You'd expect to find Nutella for sale at these Italian markets and cafes, of which there are now three, but you can get far more than a jar to take home with your panini and pizzas and oxtail crostini. Sal Marino says they have a “rotating Nutella menu,” which can feature Nutella cookies, either plain or with pistachios, Nutella “Oreo” cookies, and a Nutella layer cake with hazelnuts. Nutella is for sale at all three Bottegas, in both the 13 oz. and the 26 oz. jars.
La Bottega Marino: check the website for hours and addresses for the three locations.
Nutella gelato at Reservoir; Credit: A. Scattergood
6. Reservoir: After you've eaten all the tiny tacos on jicama slices you can manage, you might try some of chef-owner Gloria Felix's Nutella gelato. She uses Nutella out of a jar, as she likes the texture, putting large quantities of the stuff into a vanilla ice cream base before spinning it in her gelato maker. Order the trio of three scoops, topped with a chocolate chip cookie.
Credit: A. Scattergood
5. Nickel Diner: Okay, so you probably won't often order any donut but the maple-bacon here, but sometimes you must try, and when you do, you should order the Nutella donut, a brioche donut covered with dark chocolate and crushed hazelnut praline. It's one of the five donuts (in addition to the maple-bacon and Nutella, they have red velvet, strawberry and a Clockwork Orange, which is good to know for Anthony Burgess Day) on the daily menu; on the weekend there is a Samoa donut, that sounds almost as dangerous as the maple-bacon. Speaking of dangerous, when we ordered our last Nutella donut, owner Monica May handed it over, paused, and said, “So, you know about the Italian Nutella sex cults?” Sadly, no.
Nickel Diner: 524 South Main Street, Los Angeles; (213) 623-8301.
4. Joan's on Third: At Joan McNamara's gorgeous 3rd Street marketplace and cafe, they make Nutella pound cake most days. It's a traditional moist poundcake, with Nutella (right from the jar) folded into the batter so that the resulting cake is marbelized. Usually the sell the cake packaged, but for World Nutella Day, Macnamara (“I love Nutella! If you'd called and told me it was World Liver Day, I'd have said goodbye”) is making mini cakes and will have them for sale in the bakery today.
Joan's on Third: 8350 West Third Street, Los Angeles; (323) 655-2285.
3. Little Dom's: At Little Dom's in Silver Lake, you can order their exemplary Nutella panino at either the deli or the restaurant. It's a lovely sandwich: two slices of country white bread brushed with a bit of olive oil and pressed around Nutella and mascarpone.
Little Dom's: 2128 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Angeles; (323) 661-0055.
Huckleberry's PB&N sandwich; Credit: A. Scattergood
2. Huckleberry Bakery and Café: Pastry chef Zoe Nathan's PB and J sandwich is not like other peoples' PB and J. For starters, you can get it with Nutella instead of Nathan's housemade jam. And it's on two huge slabs of her brioche, also slathered with peanut butter. Nathan also sometimes makes her croissants with Nutella instead of her customary chocolate. Even sometimes bananas and Nutella. Who knows what will happen when she and husband Josh Loeb open their ice cream shop, now slated for April.
Huckleberry Bakery and Café: 1014 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, (310) 451-2311.
1. Spago: Last week longtime Spago pastry chef Sherry Yard was making a Nutella-praline-brioche soufflé with raspberries and raspberry gelato. This week for DineLA, she's got something on the menu that showcases Nutella even more than that: a Nutella soufflé served with Nutella gelato, chocolate sauce and croquants. It's a simple soufflé (well, Yard's definition of simple), made with Nutella (“that was right from the jar”), egg whites and thin crepes that have been dried and crumbled, and which Yard compares to corn flakes. Yard also uses Nutella in little shortbread cookies for her mignardise plate. In addition to using it out of the jar, Yard also, unsurprisingly, makes her own Nutella. Turns out Spago executive chef Lee Hefter is a Nutella junkie too (“it's his favorite thing in the world”). See, said Yard the other night, “we can go Euro Trash.”
Spago: 176 N. Cañon Drive, Beverly Hills; (310) 385-0880.
Sherry Yard's Nutella souffle at Spago; Credit: A. Scattergood
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