Cornetto Nights

The Italian version of the croissant, the cornetto in Rome, is faintly scented with orange or lemon essence and has more egg-based batter, which gives it a doughier consistency as opposed to the buttery flakiness of the French recipe.

A virtual Roman rite of passage is to leave the disco in the wee hours of the morning and have breakfast before heading home to sleep. We’re not talking the Danny’s All-American, but rather a cappuccino and the day’s first cornettos, fresh out of the oven and direct from the baker.

The address to a good cornettaro - Roman slang for the typical night-shift baker that sells croissants (usually an artisanal bakery/patisserie workshop) is worth gold. Rome is dotted with cornettari. A city ordinance scared millions of nighttime consumers in 2009 when voices started circulating that selling food in bakeries and workshops after hours was illegal.

«Il cornetto è salvo» —the croissant is saved. Rome's mayor Alemanno's thundering sentence ended the controversy lifted by news of a presumed municipal law involving historic Roman cornettari, which prohibited the sale of their tasty goods after 1:00 am. A group gathered 8000 signatures on Facebook for a picket line in Campidoglio, Rome's city hall; others feared a curfew blaming Alemanno's right wing affiliations to be returning Rome to its 20-year Fascist epoch, others simply feared the Eternal City would lose its status of cornetto capital that doesn't sleep. Whatever the political agenda, croissant bakers WILL continue to stay open and sell sweetness all night. And that's all that counts.