There is a small window overlooking the sea. On the windowsill, a red carnation.
In Naples, love is everything to Marechiaro, where from Posillipo you look at the sun reflected in the sea and - as the famous song says - where even fish make love.
This is what the Restaurant-Pizzeria Marechiaro, in Borgo Palazzo since 1985, want for their guests. For them to love this place too, among tables, scialatielli pasta and pizza with seafood.
Together with the Urban City District, we met Antonio Giordano, founder of the restaurant, who in the mid-eighties came to Bergamo to close a deal and who found himself having a restaurant to manage and no idea how to do it.
"I didn't even know if the fork went to the right or to the left," he comments under his thick moustache.
Until then, Mr. Antonio had first been a farmer in the rich land of Tramonti, in the province of Salerno, then a plumber, an electrician and finally also a building manager. But the kitchen had always been a private matter, of the family and that of "grandmother's pizza" made with toasted bread and topped with slices of tomato. Then, in the fifties, fortune was made by Tramonti's pizza chefs throughout northern Italy.
Antonio snorts as he remembers the beginnings - he would have gladly continued in construction - but chance offered him this story and he made it his own, and patiently he began to learn.
"I want to understand whatever I do," explains Antonio, and then tells how he entered the kitchen and defined the "line" of work: the management of spaces, products, people, and with it also the philosophy of the restaurant.
Domenico, Antonio’s son and today owner of the business, is seated next to him, listens to him silently, often smiles and, with a light in his eyes, adds: "This place already held a vocation to feed." He explains that in the 13th century, the building housed a small hospital run by the friars called Sant'Antonio in Foris. On the outside, under a porch where the main room of the restaurant is now located, the friars used to leave the night-time patrons the food and what was necessary to warm it up.
So even today at Marechiaro the atmosphere is deliberately familiar and homely, "as genuine as the people of the Borgo who welcomed us." For both father and son, there is no question of the identity of the place: it is clear, solid and unwilling to compromise. “Years ago, in the difficult time of the crisis, we firmly chose not to follow the trends and to remain true to ourselves. They can change the tools, but not what we are and what we believe in."
One of the certainties is the pizza dough to which Antonio has dedicated himself obstinately since they told him he had to eat less. "I asked myself: how can you digest this starch?" And once again he stopped only when he found the solution: type 1 flour and forty-eight hours of levitation.
If for Antonio the job is first of all understanding, for Domenico it is the management of chaos. “I like to manage stress and contingencies. It is an ongoing challenge. They call me the emergency room man!"
They are beautiful father and son, they make fun of each other, respect each other and laugh at their funniest anecdotes.
It seems that Antonio has fun teasing young workers with absurd requests. “Would you please put these coffee cups away? Those with the handle on the right go there, those with the handle on the left over there” or, "Would you go get me a bucket of electricity downstairs?" Domenico puts a hand on his forehead and laughs, he too did his apprenticeship with Dad. Wife Maria Pia and daughters Sonia and Filomena have also come by the restaurant. The last one in particular is an expert pizza chef capable of making a hundred pizzas in one evening.
But in the end, does Antonio know what cooking is? "Cooking is fantasy."
Close to the PAM supermarket.
There is a small window overlooking the sea. On the windowsill, a red carnation.
In Naples, love is everything to Marechiaro, where from Posillipo you look at the sun reflected in the sea and - as the famous song says - where even fish make love.
This is what the Restaurant-Pizzeria Marechiaro, in Borgo Palazzo since 1985, want for their guests. For them to love this place too, among tables, scialatielli pasta and pizza with seafood.
Together with the Urban City District, we met Antonio Giordano, founder of the restaurant, who in the mid-eighties came to Bergamo to close a deal and who found himself having a restaurant to manage and no idea how to do it.
"I didn't even know if the fork went to the right or to the left," he comments under his thick moustache.
Until then, Mr. Antonio had first been a farmer in the rich land of Tramonti, in the province of Salerno, then a plumber, an electrician and finally also a building manager. But the kitchen had always been a private matter, of the family and that of "grandmother's pizza" made with toasted bread and topped with slices of tomato. Then, in the fifties, fortune was made by Tramonti's pizza chefs throughout northern Italy.
Antonio snorts as he remembers the beginnings - he would have gladly continued in construction - but chance offered him this story and he made it his own, and patiently he began to learn.
"I want to understand whatever I do," explains Antonio, and then tells how he entered the kitchen and defined the "line" of work: the management of spaces, products, people, and with it also the philosophy of the restaurant.
Domenico, Antonio’s son and today owner of the business, is seated next to him, listens to him silently, often smiles and, with a light in his eyes, adds: "This place already held a vocation to feed." He explains that in the 13th century, the building housed a small hospital run by the friars called Sant'Antonio in Foris. On the outside, under a porch where the main room of the restaurant is now located, the friars used to leave the night-time patrons the food and what was necessary to warm it up.
So even today at Marechiaro the atmosphere is deliberately familiar and homely, "as genuine as the people of the Borgo who welcomed us." For both father and son, there is no question of the identity of the place: it is clear, solid and unwilling to compromise. “Years ago, in the difficult time of the crisis, we firmly chose not to follow the trends and to remain true to ourselves. They can change the tools, but not what we are and what we believe in."
One of the certainties is the pizza dough to which Antonio has dedicated himself obstinately since they told him he had to eat less. "I asked myself: how can you digest this starch?" And once again he stopped only when he found the solution: type 1 flour and forty-eight hours of levitation.
If for Antonio the job is first of all understanding, for Domenico it is the management of chaos. “I like to manage stress and contingencies. It is an ongoing challenge. They call me the emergency room man!"
They are beautiful father and son, they make fun of each other, respect each other and laugh at their funniest anecdotes.
It seems that Antonio has fun teasing young workers with absurd requests. “Would you please put these coffee cups away? Those with the handle on the right go there, those with the handle on the left over there” or, "Would you go get me a bucket of electricity downstairs?" Domenico puts a hand on his forehead and laughs, he too did his apprenticeship with Dad. Wife Maria Pia and daughters Sonia and Filomena have also come by the restaurant. The last one in particular is an expert pizza chef capable of making a hundred pizzas in one evening.
But in the end, does Antonio know what cooking is? "Cooking is fantasy."
Close to the PAM supermarket.
