Maison Antonella

Live sourdough and the festive cakes

Colomba Nuvola is where the craft shows first: a light artisanal colomba built on lievito madre vivo, a live sourdough refreshed three times a day, every day of the year, under the pastry work of maestro Stefano Laghi. The same starter discipline carries Colomba Tradizionale, softer and more classic, with cubes of candied orange and an almond glaze across the top.

Panettone artigianale runs that method into Christmas leavening, and Gambero Rosso ranked the house Panettone Tradizionale fourth among Italy’s best. Behind those seasonal peaks is a daily volume that explains the size of the pastry team: thousands of cakes, brioches, biscuits and chocolates come out of the laboratory, with the quality argument resting on raw materials rather than scale.

La Fortezza and the rest of the counter

The signature that belongs nowhere else is La Fortezza, a dessert built for the Cittadella of Alessandria: a milk chocolate tortino filled with two hazelnut cremini and finished with crunchy kataifi pastry. It is architectural where the leavened cakes are soft, and it is the clearest sign that this is a pasticceria with a design instinct.

Seasonal releases keep arriving around it. Colomba Pistacchio and Colomba Fata del Bosco take the Easter cake in different directions, Uovo Aurum handles the chocolate egg, and festive dragées round out the giftable end of the counter.

A pastry-led café on Piazza Garibaldi

Maison Antonella 1986 works across the whole day rather than as a sweet counter alone. Breakfast runs on pastry, lunch turns to dishes tied to seasonal produce and cooked to order, and the aperitivo brings a cocktail or a glass of wine with an alzatina, the tiered stand the house serves it on.

The room looks out over Piazza Garibaldi, and the interior language is elegant and romantic with a shabby chic edge. That staging matters to how the pastry lands, since a boxed colomba and a plated dessert both belong in the same room.

For a first visit, work through the signatures in order. Colomba Nuvola shows the lighter leavened style and the year-round starter; Colomba Tradizionale stays classic with candied orange and almond; panettone artigianale carries the method into winter; La Fortezza is the one to finish on. Beneath the seasonal peaks the daily counter stays broad, so a visit can move from a breakfast brioche to boxed biscuits and a composed chocolate dessert without leaving the room.