Bacetti's Chocolate and Vanilla Bites Are Little Kisses of Gelato
Bacetti means "little kisses" in Italian, and it's an apt name for a local line of bites of clean, creamy gelato painted with chocolate. An inch-and-a-half square and wrapped in pretty paper, they're miniature Klondike bars that went to finishing school.
Sister-and-brother team Alexandra and Cedric Di Donato brought the recipe to San Francisco from Italy, where they grew up. Produced in SoMa, the bites come in three flavors: Vanilla, chocolate, and milk with roasted pine nuts.
The cioccolato, probably the best, is made with thick, rich, creamy chocolate gelato, and tastes like a whipped mocha or high-cacao hot chocolate in frozen form.
The vanilla tastes like the crema flavors you'll find in European gelaterias -- simple and fresh, like heavy cream, with a thin, crackling chocolate coating. Milk with roasted pine nuts turned out to be the least interesting of the line; it took me two and a half "bites" to find an actual nut. What flavor the pine nuts impart varies from modest to a mere background.
You can buy Bacetti bites directly from their manufacturing site at 685 Harrison, as well as Valencia Whole Foods, Berkeley Bowl West, and a host of other locations. They cost $1.25 a piece, or $6 for a six-pack.
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