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To step into Roste’s womblike interior is to be instantly soothed. Pale, relaxing shades of white and turquoise cover the walls; the bar is all neat wooden slats, giving the impression of a world where everything is comfortably in order, down to the last tasteful detail. There are countless seductive choices on the menu (including sable cookies and pure melted chocolate), but your best bet is the old standby: a ginger cookie paired with a regular hot chocolate. Most cups of hot chocolate are alarmingly flavorless until you reach the dregs at the bottom; not this one. From the very first sip, dark velvety cacao seems to individually stroke each of your taste buds (it’s so good that it tastes more like drinking chocolate than cocoa). It’s a perfect match for the ginger cookie, which is studded with diamondlike chunks of sugar, but is more spicy than sweet. Despite being smeared with melted chocolate, the cookie has that slightly bitter tang that makes it pair perfectly with cocoa, each seeming to enhance the flavor of the other. An air of ritual defines Roste: After you order, the cookie and hot chocolate are presented to you on a rectangular wooden tray. It’s irksome when people insist you gradually savor desserts, but the formality of Roste compels you to go slow, savoring each bite and sip. Roste does not deliver the hot chocolate and desserts of your childhood: It delivers the delicacies that make you want to be the cool adult you envision yourself as.
475 NW 14th Ave., 971-339-9014, rostechocolate.com. 9 am-7 pm Monday-Sunday. $10.50.