Baladoche Brings The Belgian To Dessert

By Melissa Wiley in Food on Aug 24, 2012 4:00PM

It’s worth venturing into Baladoche just to glean more inside information about the Belgian royals. That’s supposing, of course, that Belgian Zücker waffles—invented, incidentally, by the Prince of Liège’s personal chef—and super-creamy gelato aren’t your primary concerns. We admit to visiting this Lakeview storefront strictly for a plebeian scoop of gelato, only to find that our tastes aligned with that of the Belgian monarchy.

This particular dynasty, we're told, and its Low Country taste buds favor the Galler brand of chocolate. Naturally, Baladoche deigns to peddle these prestigious chocolates to its mixed-blood customers, who can also avail themselves of the store’s stock of European Nutella, which predictably outshines its American counterpart, on some Euro-style waffles ($5). One of the clerks informed us that American Nutella was "made with candle wax," but we love Nutella so much we'll take it from whatever nationality we can get.

For all our love of democracy, it turns out we like a little aristocracy with our after-dinner indulgences. For starters, it makes some amends for all the corndogs we downed during lunch in our formative years. It’s also just edifying entertainment while you’re sampling gelato flavors from buttercream to zabaglione. And for what it’s worth, Baladoche would easily win our humble dollar even without this endorsement via divine ordination. Because who needs primogeniture when you’ve got gelato (two scoops for $2) and soaring Chicago summertime temps? Certainly not us, though we’ll take it all the same if it means we get to satisfy our simple American sweet tooth.

Baladoche is located at 2905 North Clark Street.