You write “Eataly” you read “Italy”. This is maybe the most popular food&wine chain spread all over the world where you can find the best Italian products. An original name for a simple purpose: the promotion of Italian excellence: wine, cheeses including fresh mozzarella, cappuccino, fruits, vegetables, bread, biscuits, olive oil, cereals, pasta, birra and so on.
Torino and Milano in the north of Italy, Roma, Firenze, Bologna and also Bari in the south of Italy; but even New York, Chicago, Japan, Istanbul. Several locations for a chain which is not a chain “but a family” as they declare themselves. Each location includes of course the shop, the Cafè to have Italian breakfast, sometimes a restaurant or something similar. The nice thing is that going around the shop you can see tables where you can sit and order some of the most typical local products. Recently I had the pleasure to have lunch in the “shop” of Torino where I ordered “Ravioli del Plin” (the typical home-made pasta in Piedmont filled with meat and vegetables): delicious; even the “Cola” is local (they do not sell the classical brand Coca-Cola but their ‘Cola’ along with Gazzosa and orange drink, all produced by the company Lurisia). And while I was eating, people were shopping around choosing among the wide ranges of fruit juices, spices, ice cream and chocolate bars, fresh fish and meat, wines or even beauty products and accessories to cook or to preserve your products at home. So you can chat to each other and an American girl asked me about “Ravioli” I was having and I was happy to tour her around suggesting my favorite products: fruit and vegetable juices, a great sparkling wine produces in Piedmont and a very good brand of pasta produced in Gragnano: the homeland of pasta in Italy (in Campania).
Eataly has been founded in the 2003 by Oscar Farinetti who still owns 60% of the company, the first shop has been opened in Torino but today the biggest is the one located in Rome. Some smaller shops are available abroad and 2 restaurants are even on board of MSC cruises line.
It represents a great attraction for Italians and even tourists who visit Italy each year and it is a great opportunity to try the best Italian products abroad. In New York, Eataly is gaining an exceptional success: you can make a reservation to have dinner at the restaurant or you can stop to have a real Italian coffee feeling like in a “Bar” in Italy; you can stop after dinner to have a great ice-cream too and while waiting for your turn, of course, you can buy something to bring home!
They also sell “recipe packages”: all you need to make your own Italian recipe at home, what about “spaghetti alla puttanesca tonite?” (spaghetti with tomatoes, capers, olives and anchovies).
Last summer I have been at Eataly in New York where I had dinner at “Birreria” (the Brewery). At Birreria they refer to Dante Alighieri “Divina Commedia” so at the entrance you find a big sign: “Dante put Gluttonous in the 3rd circle of hell; we put them in the rooftop, in Heaven!” and this is why I had my Italian beer at the 15th floor of the building where, on each step of the stairs, sentences of “Inferno” (one of the 3 works which compose “Divina Commedia” by Alighieri) has been reproduced.
Each shop has different corner: pasta, pizza, cheese, prosciutto, desserts, the colored vegetables, jams and sauces to dress your plates as you like. In a few words: you can learn about Italian meal going over stereotypes: we do not only eat pasta! What I like more at Eataly is the atmosphere: you feel like at home, it is informal with just one simple target which can be fascinated: everybody!
This is why many places in Italy are following the same style. In January 2014 in Napoli a great pole has been opened: “Eccellenza Campane”, each corner is communicated by original slogan to make fun about Napoli and the food you are going to eat. Here you can find all the typical products of Napoli including pizza, bread, pasta and baba’ the typical napolitan dessert with rhum.
So jump in and have a real Italian taste also because rumors says that in the 2016 Eataly will be opened in Los Angeles too!
