It's a change of tack this month as I've recently travelled to the United States to do a series of lectures there. My travels took me to the prairie city of Chicago which I last visited in 1990, so it was wonderful to make a long awaited return visit and this time I stayed in a 17th floor room in a downtown hotel, visted the late 19th century Driehaus Mansion Museum (where, incidentally, there was an exhibition of Downton Abbey costumes drawing huge crowds) and spent a day out in the suburb of Oak Park to see Frank Lloyd Wright's house and studio and other properties designed by the illustrious American architect. On the first day in town my colleague and friend Jenny McCahey, asked me if I'd ever been to "Eataly" and I said I was a frequent visitor to the country, having been there only in February this year. "I don't mean the country" she said "its the shop and restaurant I'm talking about - its famous" I had to admit to Jennie that I'd never heard of it! We were having this conversation on the pavement outside the hotel and the doorman suddenly came forward and exclaimed - "Any visitor to this town has to go to "Eataly" - it's just round the corner and you'll be amazed!".
Eataly was literally a couple of blocks from the hotel and when we came to the front entrance I was filled with anticipation as to what we'd find inside. The best way to sum it up - think of a huge city department store devoted to one thing - Italian food - and you have it in a nutshell. It is quite simply a phenomenon.
Eataly was literally a couple of blocks from the hotel and when we came to the front entrance I was filled with anticipation as to what we'd find inside. The best way to sum it up - think of a huge city department store devoted to one thing - Italian food - and you have it in a nutshell. It is quite simply a phenomenon.
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| THE CHICAGO BRANCH OF "EATALY" |
The whole emporium is dedicated to celebrating the Italian food experience - both in terms of selling fine artisan, organic foods and wines from the home country supplemented with fresh, seasonal organic locally sourced produce - and also providing customers with freshly cooked "Italian" meals and snacks. In different parts of the two storey humungous store there was for example a pizza-pasta restaurant, a prosecco bar, a gelato counter and a coffee bar - and so it goes on. It's all a bit overwhelming when you first enter but the cleverly designed orientaion space at the entrance helps sort it all out. There's even a bookstore, a cooking school and a private events venue.
Eager to discover more about this intriguing shop cum restaurant I was soon talking to some of the friendly staff and reading the information panels about the history of Eataly.
Eataly was and is the brainchild of Oscar Farinetti an Italian entreprenuer. He has an interesting background. In 1978 he began working for UniEuro, a small Italian appliance and food retail store and played a key role in developing it in to one of the largest retailers of electronics in the country - opening 150 stores between 1978 and 2003. Moving on in 2003 he founded Eataly in 2007 in the Lingott district of Turin. The shop was to be located in a closed down vermouth factory and easily accessible by metro from the centre of town. From the beginning he thought big and his mission was simple "to make high quality Italian foods available to everyone, at fair prices and in an environment where people can shop, learn, eat and enjoy themselves." The concept of combining excellent quality produce and food in an Italian style market environment would prove to be a brilliant business model.
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| THE VERY FIRST "EATALY" STORE IN TURIN - ITALY |
The New York branch of Eataly, located near Madison Square Park, opened in 2010 as a joint venture between Eataly, Italy and the Batali and Bastianich Hospitality Group. At over 50,000 square feet and creating 300 new jobs it was a welcome addition to the Big Apple food scene and opened in August of that year with huge press coverage. Batali described it at the time as "a grocery store with tasting rooms". Two weeks after opening there were still long queues down 5th Avenue as would be customers patiently waited to experience Eataly. Today, according to my New York pals, its packed out most of the time and difficult to get a seat during peak periods.
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| EATALY - NEW YORK |
On December 2nd 2013 Eataly opened its Chicago branch, the one I was experiencing, at 43 Ohio Street and with 63.000 square feet it was even bigger than the bustling New York store. The Chicago branch is co-owned by Mario Batali andJoe Bastianich and its estimated the store cost in excess of 20 million dollars to open.
I went to Eataly, Chicago twice during my stay - once at lunch time and once in the evening. On both occasions it was a terrific experience and not one to be rushed. Wandering through the various departments we leisurely examined hundreds of Italian wines, tarried over a department displaying endless varieties of pasta and watched the butchers preparing the meat for amazing displays. Cheese tasting was another wonderful diversion. In the pizza/ pasta restaurant our waiting staff were friendly, knowledgeable and suitably advisory in helping us choose a home made pasta dish. In the evening I chose a tagliatelle with bolognese sauce topped with shavings of parmesan which was simply delicious and it was perfectly accompanied by a generous glass of prosecco. Afterwards we tried our hand at the downstairs coffee shop and that didn't disappoint either.
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| DINING WITH MY FRIENDS JENNIE AND SCOTT AT EATALY - CHICAGO |
Since opening the store in Turin the company has not looked back. The chain opened more stores in Italy including one in Rome, its largest megastore, in a disused Airport Terminal building near Ostiense station. There's now a store in Tokyo and plans to open other outlets in Boston, Hong Kong, Montreal, Mexico City, Moscow, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Philadelphia and Washington DC. How could I not know about this Italian food chain?? - well it hasn't arrived in Britain yet, but I'm delighted to know there's one planned for London in the near future. If you are an Italian foodie - go find one and enjoy!!!
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| EATALY - JAPANESE STYLE - THE TOKYO BRANCH |
CIAO AND KBO - IAN
