An empty dining room in warm lamplight, linen-laid tables before a wall of shelves

Our Story

Since 1974

How a family kitchen became a restaurant, and what's stayed the same along the way.

(01) The Room

It was a haberdasher's
before it was ours.

It started with one table, a wood-fired oven, and a family that had already been cooking together for three generations. There was no menu to speak of — just whatever was fresh that morning, served the way it had always been served at home. Word spread slowly, the way it does when there's nothing to advertise but good food.

Today the dining room seats far more than that first table ever could, but the kitchen still runs on the same instinct: cook what's good, cook it simply, and let the ingredients do the talking. The room has changed shape over the years — new light, new tables, a longer bar — but the rhythm of service hasn't.

A greengrocer's street stall of crated tomatoes, peppers and artichokes in an old town alley
  1. 1974The restaurant opens its doors for the first time, one table at a time.
  2. 1985A second generation takes over the kitchen and expands the dining room.
  3. 2009The restaurant moves to Berlin, keeping the same recipes and the same spirit.
  4. NowStill family-run, still cooking the way it always has.
The chef at work in the low light of the kitchen

(02) The Chef

Elena Moretti

Our head chef grew up in a kitchen much like this one, learning to roll pasta before learning to read a recipe. Training took them through kitchens in Emilia-Romagna and Puglia, each one adding a little more to a style built on patience over shortcuts.

That training shows up in the small things — sauces that simmer for hours, pasta cut by hand each morning, bread made fresh for every service. Nothing is rushed, and nothing is left to a shortcut when the slower way is better.

Elena Moretti — Executive Chef

“We cook the way our grandmothers did — a little slower, a little simpler, and always together.”

Elena Moretti

(03) Sourcing

We buy from
thirty-one people.

We buy from a small circle of Italian producers we've worked with for years, alongside growers at Berlin's markets who share the same standards. Cheese, olive oil and cured meats come from family producers we've visited ourselves.

Seasonality shapes the menu more than anything else. When a vegetable is at its best for only a few weeks, that's exactly when it shows up on the table — and not before, and not after.

Flour-dusted hands working a ball of dough on a dark stone counter
Green and black olives in small bowls beside a jug of olive oil

That's still how we cook today: honest ingredients, patient technique, and a table that's always open to you.

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