Between lunch and dinner hours on a Saturday, Dolce Amici, in Norway, was fairly quiet. A group of probably-70-somethings stopped in for gelato, hunkering down near the refrigerated display case, snow whirling past the front windows.

A middle-aged woman sidled up to the bar for a cocktail and chatted with the staff while she waited for her takeout order. And two of us, in for an off-hours meal, occupied a cozy table in the back corner. “That was our intention, to have it be a place that runs the gamut,” says Lourdes Rubio, who, with Liz Cook, opened Dolce Amici in 2020. “It makes my heart sing when I see that play out.”