LAHORE: Italian restaurant Café Barbera, that hit the Lahore food market a year and a half ago, is one of those cafes/restaurants that keep experimenting with their menu, with the top favourite customer items remaining constant! Recently, the restaurant added the following quintessential winter delicacies. Oven-Baked Bhakti Fish With Rice, the Ultimate Lobster Feast, Hand Battered Cheesy Red Snapper and Tuna sandwiches are some of the newest additions to their menu! We’ve all tried fish in all its forms and varieties at a myriad of restaurants, but Barbera’s version of the Hand Battered Cheesy Snapper is distinct not just in its taste but in its presentation as well! Lobster is another seafood variety, which is available in only a handful of fine-dining restaurants and Barbera prepares the dish to perfection! Café Barbera doesn’t claim to be a fine-dining restaurant! It is a regular café, open from 8am to 1am, offering coffee, shakes, salads, pastas, a variety of pizzas for both chicken and veggie lovers, sandwiches and mocktails! Their desserts ranging from cakes, pastries, cookies, chocolate molten lava cakes to delicious brownies are hard to avoid, even after a hearty meal. Having said that, to offer fine-dining cuisines like the fish platter, which is an addition to their menu adds a distinct appeal to the restaurant. “Café Barbera is the expression of over 140 years of coffee perfection and passion from six generations of coffee roasters,” claims their website! However, it is pertinent to mention that the café/restaurant is much more than that. From deliciously-prepared breakfasts to lunch and dinner menus, with hi-tea and exquisite Ramadan deals, Barbera has gone from strength to strength in mustering a clientele, which keeps coming back for more! Other than the delectable new winter menu, my personal favourites served at Barbera are the Alfredo Chicken Pasta, their Caesar Salad, thin-crust pizzas and how to forget their Chocolate Molten Lava Cake. One facet the restaurant needs to improve on is the interior, which could do with a more Mediterranean coffee house feel, in tune with the theme of the cuisine being offered. That said, Barbera’s breakfast has created a furore amongst Lahoris with the Mian Mahmood Kasuri Road premises thronged for those looking to chow down on the Rs 500 breakfast deal. And now with their winter menu and especially the fish platter, Barbera could give many fine dining restaurants a run for their money!