Get Ready For World Nutella Day & Our Top 10 List of Nutella Restaurant Dishes

Tomorrow, drumroll please, is World Nutella Day. Okay, this is one of those holidays (Arbor Day, National Cream Puff Day) that may seem arbitrary and slightly ridiculous at first, when in fact it is a serious vindication for some of us. In 2007, two American ex-pat writers living in Italy, Sara Rosso and Michelle Fabio, made it official, declaring their love for the chocolate-hazelnut spread and declaring the day a holiday.

For the uninitiated: Nutella is a product of the Ferraro company, a spread that was invented during wartime Italy for children and has achieved a kind of worldwide domination in the decades since. It is a habit, a hobby, even a vocation. It's also serious business, as Ferrero, Inc. principle owner Michele Ferrero recently overtook Silvio Berlusconi to become the richest man in Italy, with a net worth of $9.5 billion.

To find Nutella, you can use Ferraro USA's handy store locator. But that doesn't provide much detail other than the address and phone number of your local Albertson's, and certainly nothing like the nuances between countries of origin. Because although Ferraro will tell you that all jars taste the same, they do not. Italian-made Nutella, which you can find in the crowded aisles at Bay Cities in Santa Monica, tastes different from the jars manufactured in North America. German-made Nutella (Alpine Village Bakery in Torrance) also tastes different, as does the Polish-made spread (Avakian's Grocery in Glendale). Many Nutella devotees knife the stuff onto slabs of bread, or onto pancakes or waffles or crepes. That is, when we're not just eating it out of the jar.

But if you want to be truly civilized, try ordering it at a restaurant. As there is no Ferrero restaurant locator for that one, we've done the legwork for you. Check back tomorrow for our post on the Top 10 places to score your restaurant Nutella fix. A hint: the folks at Spago are serious Nutella junkies.