(Buzz Bakery photo courtesy of Neighborhood Restaurant Group)
Best desserts
The Washington Post Staff | Updated 02/09/2012
The most crave-worthy sweets in Washington are refined closers to memorable meals and whimsical revivals of childhood treats. And sometimes, they're simpler pleasures, the kind that arrive in paper cups.
Buzz Bakery
Multiple Locations
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Buzz Bakery Ballston
(Arlington, VA)
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Buzz Bakery
(Alexandria, VA)
You can now find the nostalgia-inducing oatmeal cream pies and "hostess cupcakes" of pastry chef Tiffany MacIssac at restaurants such as Birch and Barley, but her temples to sugar in Northern Virginia --- the mod, stylish Buzz Bakery cafes in Alexandria and Ballston -- remain destinations for dessert devotees. Make a date for pie and coffee, or just some zany bacon cupcakes and a glass of wine. You'll want to order two to share, and two more to go.
Trummer's on Main
Clifton, VA
The new-American restaurant turns out equally classic desserts, such as pound cake topped with tarragon-laced blueberries, house-made vanilla-bean ice cream and coffee mousse. But the most alluring menu item? The extravagant dessert tasting, which lets it be known that desserts here are as important as the mains.
Serendipity 3
Washington, DC
By day, the Georgetown restaurant, an offshoot of the New York institution launched in 1954, is pure tourist trap -- interminable waits, $16 salads. But go at night (the restaurant keeps a light on late, until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays), skip the savories and the $9-a-pop Frrrozen Hot Chocolate and order one of the comically indulgent sundaes: the Red Velvet sundae, for example. It arrives with a whole slice of red-velvet cake planted on a mountain of chocolate ice cream and topped with whipped cream and sprinkles.
Co Co. Sala
Washington, DC
Your chocolate adventure begins with the restau-lounge's dessert tasting menus.
Fiola
Washington, DC
One can feel the love emanating from this modern Italian restaurant -- for that you can thank chef Fabio Trabocchi and his wife, Maria, who are at its core. There's plenty of heart in the desserts, too: Save room for the Italian ricotta doughnuts known as bomboloni, which arrive boxed like the gift that they are.
Pinkberry
Multiple Locations
Fro-yo has yet to loosen its grip on Washington; this California-based franchise opened two D.C. shops and three in Northern Virginia in 2011. At the Dupont Circle location, it's become a nightly ritual for 20-something couples to settle into the Philippe Starck seats and whisper sweet nothings over cups of blood-orange yogurt.
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