Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique, Cividale del Friuli, Udine, Italy

We support the liberation of bread and all baked goods from all unsightly plastic bags and from humiliatingly poor ingredients. Bread is important, essential and incredibly good and good for you when taken seriously. This does not mean complicated or gimmicky. In fact, the best breads, cookies and pastries are the ancient basics, traditional recipes lovingly passed on and sometimes improved by each generation. These gorgeous traditional breads deserve to be created, sold and enjoyed in beautiful surroundings.

Our love of bread and bakeries where tradition and modern life coexist has resulted in a series of articles we headlined The Rise of the Designer Bakery. It continues to be one of our most popular and most-copied article series ever. And we are glad to add another little establishment to this series of bakeries: Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique in Cividale de Friuli, in Udine, Italy.

Dorbolò La Gubana Boutique is a bakery and café designed by Giorgio di Bernardo, CEO and founder of Udine-based Visual Display S.r.l. We have featured di Bernardo’s work before, including the Restoration of Vitello d’Oro, The City’s Oldest Restaurant, a secret pop-up bar, Mr. Simon, both also located in Udine in Northeastern Italy.

Gubana is a typical Friulian dessert of the Valli del Natisone area traditionally prepared at home for great occasions. It is said to date back to 1,400 years ago and brought to this region by the people of ancient Slavic origin.

The Dorbolo family has a long tradition of baking this local dessert that is both a pastry and a cake made of sweet, leavened dough and filled with layers of dried fruit and nuts. The owners of the new bakery café, Jessica and Joelle Dorbolo, have inherited the recipe from their grandmother Antonia.

In addition to gubana, the shop sells other cakes and pastries and traditional breads. Its interior is minimalist in all other aspects except in the ceiling that has an arched substructure that could be said to resemble the layers of a gubana when it is cut into slices. The designer tells us that the shop is envisioned to be a small stage with its various sets up in the wings. The majority of the space is dedicated to the marble display cases, but in the background, there are small round tables with intriguing L-shaped brass legs that bolt into the wall-mounted seating.

The overall effect is that of a light and happy yet decidedly elegant cake box or container that just happens to have breathtaking views of the historic city center of Cividale del Friuli.  Tuija Seipell

Images Camilla Bach – Styling Sara Bertolini