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Dolci Café
Shop 5 and 6 Lancaster Village, 28 Clarence Avenue, Craighall Park, Joburg
Five stars
Dolci Café in Craighall Park, not be confused with coffee shop franchise Dulce Café, has steadily gained a loyal clientele since its opening in 2015.
Starting as a small pastry café, it’s now a large restaurant that makes some of the most sumptuous, authentic pastas in the city.
This is thanks to the fact that all the pasta is made fresh daily on site and cooked perfectly al dente.
The restaurant is currently owned and run by chef Jackie Righi-Boyd and her husband, actor Clayton Boyd (Generations: The Legacy), as well as partner Zoran Mijailovic.
Righi-Boyd’s mother is super-nonna-chef Luciana Righi, behind beloved Italian eateries like Assaggi, Tre Nonni and Amarcord, and she is also part of the Dolci team.
Dolci Café rocks because apart from the lovely food and wine, the prices remain comparatively affordable. The pastas for instance are on average R100, while a fillet steak goes for about R160.
Some of the menu highlights include the Ravioli di Vitello (R115) – perfectly prepared pasta parcels stuffed with veal and cooked in a burnt butter and sage sauce. Topped with some Parmesan, it’s simple, comforting and fragrant.
Picture: Grethe Kemp
In Italy, insalata means lettuce, and it’s usually used to clean the palate between dishes. The restaurant’s tagliata di manzo (R159) consists of sliced beef fillet with slow-cooked Italian tomatoes and potato wedges, and nibbling on lettuce in between each is a great way to savour the flavours of everything in the dish.
Picture: Supplied
The home-made tagliatelle ragu (R96) – flat pasta served with a traditional Bolognese sauce – is another wonderfully simple, perfectly cooked staple, and is chef Jackie’s favourite item on the menu.
The perfect starter is the antipasto misto – a perfectly thought-out platter of salami, mortadella, prosciutto, Gorgonzola, Gouda and Brie served with caper berries, Kalamata olives, sliced fresh tomatoes, onion marmalade and fresh ciabatta. It’s R104 for one and R182 for two, but one is enough to share between two people.
Make sure to leave room for dessert, because the dolce della nonna (R60) – translated as “grandma’s dessert” – is made from Jackie’s grandmother’s recipe and is a sumptuous, creamy, almondy, slice of heaven.
On Friday and Saturday nights the restaurant hosts live musicians, making it a perfect date-night spot.
- Call 010 900 2274 to make a reservation
