IT WAS my first time … and it involved lashings of honey. OK, get your minds out of the gutter. I may be describing a pleasure of the flesh but it's not that carnal.

I speak of the affogato. For the uninitiated - and I must say, you haven't lived - the standard affogato consists of gelato (usually vanilla, and rightly so) topped with a shot of hot espresso coffee.

It's a work of pure genius and sensory clashes. The heat of the espresso collides with the chill of the gelato. The bitterness of the coffee jars with the sweetness of the gelato. Liquid meets solid. Juxtapositions such as these are marks of a superior affogato experience.

I was seduced. And so I began to search beyond Sydney's inner-west for the superior affogato experience.

The city fringe (Glebe and Surry Hills) appears to be doing OK. But my attempts in the CBD have been fruitless - and filled with barista bastardry.

One affogato atrocity worth mentioning involves a barely visible, completely inadequate morsel of gelato being rapidly engulfed by a sea of espresso. It's piss weak - and in clear breach of a key requirement: the correct ratio of gelato to espresso. As a consequence of this misdemeanour, particularly if the treat is ordered for take-away, you usually wind up with a melted mess of creamy liquid.

Once this has occurred, all is lost; the purchaser can no longer control the distribution of espresso over gelato. Perhaps some coffee vendors take the translation of affogato too literally (it is the Italian word for "drowned"). But in my experience, it is a case of getting what you paid for. If you are ever charged less than $4 for an affogato, brace yourself for such sludge.

One young man had the audacity to check if I wanted sugar in my espresso, thus showing his utter disrespect for the sweet versus bitter principle at the heart of the experience!

Another waiter apparently misheard me and asked if I wanted an avocado.

But my affogato adoration was chiefly affronted on both these occasions by the fact that they took place in establishments branded with Italian names and staffed by people of European backgrounds. They had raised my expectations of quality and authenticity.

No. I've decided the CBD needs to lift its affogato aspirations. Pronto!

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