Eataly Opens In Turin

EXCLUSIVE – After four years’ planning, Eataly, the first large store dedicated to high-quality food and drink (mainly Italian, plus a few products from other EU countries), was inaugurated in Turin last week.

The store is located in the old Carpano vermouth factory — a listed national monument specially restructured over the last three years — on the city’s Via Nizza and houses a museum in honor of the historic drink.

The site is just a stone’s throw from the city’s Lingotto exhibition center, where Slow Food stages its Salone del Gusto and Terra Madre every two years, and some have defined Eataly as a sort of all-year-round Salone.

The brains behind the project, developed in collaboration with Slow Food (in an advisory role) Coop Adriatica, Coop Liguria e Novacoop Piemonte, is Oscar Farinetti, an old friend of Slow Food president Carlo Petrini.

Slow Food’s consultancy has so far involved the building of a database of suppliers for Eataly and the organization of taste education and cookery courses to be launched next fall. Its Presidium products will also be available in the store.

Eataly covers an area of 11,000 sq m (3,200 dedicated to teaching and education, 2,450 to the sale and tasting of food and drink). It also houses a formal restaurant, a number of small theme eateries, a library of gastronomy books and periodicals and a 200-seater lecture hall.

Similar stores are scheduled to open in Milan, Verona, Bologna, Florence, Naples, Bari and Palermo.

For more information:
www.eataly.it