Past
It all began on May 1, 1958 when my grandmother Romola and her sister Marta decided to take over a small dairy at 13 St. Thomas Street. The shelving was very old and the counter was held up with bricks. The license, my grandmother often recounted, was bought with the sacrifices of the whole family.
My Aunt Marta, however, had other plans: she wanted to open her own business. So she decided to take a bakery on Corso Palestro and then, in the following years, move to number 12 Via San Tommaso, exactly opposite the dairy.
Aunt Marta's decision forced the third sister, Bruna, to quit her job at Metron (an old factory that manufactured pressure gauges and odometers) to help my grandmother run the store. As the years went by, the store managed to become more and more noticed and remembered not only for the quality of its products but also for its helpfulness and attention to the Customer.
The dairy served all the bars, hotels and some restaurants in the area. At that time it sold, as my grandmother often tells me, 600 or more liters of milk a day, hand-delivered by my Aunt Bruna.
The store served the Agnelli family and the cooks of noble families in the area, even a former cook of the Royal Household who had passed on to my grandmother some recipes that she, in turn, dispensed to many customers (the roast with liquid cream and lemon was one of her favorites).
The store over the years has been the subject of several newspaper articles that have appeared in La Stampa, La Repubblica, Torino7, Glamour and Elle, and many other Italian and international publications.
Carlin Petrini, founder of the SlowFood association dedicated a chapter of his book “People of Piedmont” to the work of my grandmother and aunt.
Present
After 58 years of skillful work, with a few more years and a few aches and pains due to age, my grandmother and great aunt decided in 2015 to retire. So for a few years now, I have been running the family business.
Granddaughter of Romola and great-granddaughter of Bruna, who has always been in the shop-to play as a child and to help as an adult-determined, with the help of the “historical” saleswoman Evelin (in the store for 33 years), to do everything to keep the store's traditions intact but, at the same time, to bring some small innovations a little more in step with the times.
I really believe in this project, I firmly believe that people still want to eat well and discover small neighborhood realities like this one. I believe in direct contact with people and customers, I believe in establishing an ongoing family relationship of dialogue and discussion. My idea of commerce is based on listening to my customers' needs, advising and informing them about the best products they can find in the store.
I believe in quality, I believe in taste, and I believe that the only weapon that still remains to businesses like mine is to communicate and always choose the best and the particular in products. Simple but quality. I believe in small producers, very often synonymous with authenticity. What could be nicer after all than knowing what you are eating?
My intent is to sell and at the same time disseminate a True Food Culture: an all-Italian culture that must be preserved, protected and spread.
During these years I have been able to make small but significant changes in the store: the choice of small producers, take-away cheese and charcuterie tastings, communication on Instagram and Facebook that have allowed me to expand my Italian and foreign clientele and especially cultivate them over time at a distance and, home deliveries and shipments in Italy abroad, collaborations with tour guides and small local businesses.
Future
We have come a long way since 1958 but I have, we have, still so much to do, think and accomplish.
Day after day, year after year, with the intent to grow, to pass on the past and traditions and to communicate the quality of the best traditions and the best Italian foods.
We always look at our past, do our best to keep intact the beautiful traditions and savoire faire that my grandmother and aunt taught us. But it is equally important to make small changes that year after year allow us to keep the focus high on our reality and our store.
For this reason, we have been offering takeaway tastings for some time now with the intention of sharing our dairy culture. Each tasting is designed, in terms of selection, according to the needs of the customer so as to meet him on his tastes, in each cutting board we put only specialties, regional particularities not easy to find elsewhere precisely because we believe that small productions deserve voice and attention.
We offer walking tasting pochettes: a small snack - street food to approach the dairy tradition always explaining the small selection we choose at the moment.
We offer a small menu of sweet walking temptations, constantly being updated (best to check the instagram page to keep up to date). Among the most popular ones surely: the fresh whipped cream cup made on the spot with the store's historic planetary mixer, hot eggnog and whipped cream with marron glace.
There are still many projects and ideas, and we are working to be able to implement them all one at a time. Our desire to spread food and wine culture also passes through tasting events in collaboration with producers and other stores, collaborations with the city's tour guides, and ad hoc tastings organized for companies or clubs.
Years go by, generations change, but the store will always remain the same old corner dairy, ready to let you taste anything you want and give tastings to your four-legged friends as well, as my grandmother and aunt always did with so much love.
