Loste Café

Laminated Dough in a Standing City

3.5 of 5

Milan eats breakfast standing up. A cornetto, an espresso, two minutes at the bar and back to work. Loste Café asks you to sit down, which in this city counts as a small act of rebellion. The name is a mash of its two owners, LOrenzo and STEfano: Lorenzo Cioli, a sommelier, and Stefano Ferraro, a Turin-born pastry chef who spent years in kitchens in London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Dubai and Sydney before coming home to roll butter into dough.

That travel is in the pastry case. The Infatuation credits Loste with making the cinnamon roll a thing in Milan, and the line on Via Guicciardini is about more than that. The lamination is precise, the butter is not apologising, and the good stuff is often gone before noon. Look for the Kev, a raspberry and pastry cream number that disappears in a few bites, and the egg sandwich on soft brioche. The coffee is specialty and taken seriously. Lunch runs until half past two.

The original room is small and usually full. The Certosa branch on Via Varesina is bigger and calmer and does a weekend brunch, and there is a take-away counter on Via Pirelli. Go early, sit down, and let the city rush past the window without you.

Order this: A cinnamon roll, The Kev, raspberry and pastry cream, The egg sandwich on brioche, A cappuccino or a filter
The damage: $$
Go: Before ten, before the pastry case empties; Certosa for weekend brunch
Find it: Via Francesco Guicciardini 3, 20129 Milano MI, Italy
Website: lostecafe.com