Buzzing Gelato & Tossing Pizza at Amare La Cucina

Buzzing Gelato & Tossing Pizza

By: Nonnette C. Bennett

Summer is upon us and cool treats make it bearable. To the adventurous, what about a scoop of Cabernet Gelato or Red Horse Gelato for a light buzz after tossing your own pizza at Amare La Cucina (Italian for Love Your Kitchen)?

Creating their own selection of 20 homemade gelato flavors for Monte Gelati, Edmark Bustos, 33 and wife Nica are capturing natural and favorite flavors using the Italian technology. Bustos says that gelato is smoother, lighter and airy compared to ice cream and has less butterfat. Recently experimenting with alcoholic beverages as flavors, he explains that the alcohol content is reduced when they cook the wine or beer prior to mixing it with the custard that is the base of gelato. This allows the alcohol to freeze but retain the flavor of the drink. He says gelato is better than ice cream since it has less sugar and allows you to better taste the fruit, nut, chocolate and other ingredients used because it doesn’t numb the tongue. His favorite things like Nutella and Speculoos Cookie Butter are in the selection of gelato flavors too since they opened in February this year.

“Would you like to prepare your own pizza?” Edmark asked. This is the experience that Amare La Cucina adds in the woodfire brick oven made pizzas that they serve. Wenmark Mirania, 21, pizza dough tosser and maker, says he trained for a month before he learned the art of tossing the dough which he is willing to share with the curious customers. The ingredients for the different kinds of pizza are weighed and pre-packed to give consistency in the quality of the pizza according to Edmark. “Anytime you come to Amare the pizza will be the same,” he said. He is supplied organic vegetables for the salads and pizza by three local farmers. He uses about 10 bundles of fruit tree branches for the wood in his oven daily to bake his pizza and other food preparations like ribs and chicken. He says that they try to maximize the use of all the ingredients and items in the restaurant to reduce waste. After five years, all these ingredients for management and operations have rated Amare as number one in firewood baked pizzas in Baguio according to Tripadvisor.

Amare is not just a pleasure for the palate with the Italian flair but also an opportunity for its workers and staff to venture into the same business. Bustos says that he hopes that sharing the recipes and training the staff with the skills to understand the business will inspire them to become entrepreneurs like him. He has already opened two other branches in San Juan, La Union and Pasig with partners. The kitchen lovers are growing in number because of Edmark’s love for food baked in the woodfire brick oven. He designs the brick oven made from German fire bricks and mortar that can sustain 1200°F himself.

The exotic Cabernet and Red Horse gelato of Monte Gelati on a warm summer day should be a nice finish to any of your favorite pizzas at Amare La Cucina. Toss your very own pizza and get the zing and buzz of the exotic or fruity gelato from 10 am to 9 pm at the Albergo Hotel on any day.