Restaurants that reopen: at Aldo and Giorgina you eat like in the old days

This article is published in issue 21 of Vanity Fair on newsstands until May 25, 2021

«Sixty years ago we started to get out of misery. Today we start again to get out of fear ». The enthusiasm of Aldo Iacomoni, for all only Aldo, together with the blue eyes of his wife Giorgina, are an institution in Monte San Savino. 80 years old he, 74 she, run like two kids from the kitchen of their restaurant, named in honor of the founder The delights of Aldo, towards the wooden tables that dominate the center of the town square: a small village (does not reach 9 thousand inhabitants) all stones and bricks perched on the soft and green hills of the province of Arezzo.

Under a white awning, and strictly spaced, the first customers appear, happy to return to taste the best of Tuscan tradition. The menu can be read on paper placemats: it ranges from pappa al pomodoro to ribollita. The main dish, however, is the Chianina, a huge and white cow, with imposing horns and a particularly tender meat that lives, as the name implies, only in Val di Chiana. What Aldo eats comes directly from his butcher’s shop: it is the door next to the restaurant and it is the place where it all began.

«After the military service, the porchettaio of the town allowed me to take over his business: I paid 13 thousand lire a month’s rent. For me there were so many ”, Aldo says with the smile of someone who goes back to hard and happy times. It was 1960, he was 19 and the determination of a ram ready to break through the destiny of poverty to which he had been assigned. “Mine was a family of fishmongers. They fished in rivers, but didn’t earn a penny. The fish traded. At a certain point, I detached myself from the activity of my parents. I hadn’t even finished middle school and I started following a butcher who worked pork. As pay, he let me retrieve the leftovers of the bagging machine. I took home a bullet of meat, a priceless treasure. My luck was to find great masters who taught me a trade ».

Luck was joined by passion and dedication which, over time, allowed Aldo to combine the sale of porchetta with that of poultry and Chianina. To pass on their knowledge to their two children, Elena and Giorgio, and now also to their grandchildren. To cultivate a relationship of trust with the breeders, who now reserve the best of livestock for him. And to transform a provincial butcher’s shop into a place of attraction for big cities and even for the Vatican. “Word of mouth started in the ’80s,” says Giorgina, who has been Aldo’s wife, fan and collaborator since the very beginning. «Monte San Savino is attached to the motorway exit, easy to reach. Many people who passed through the area began to stop by us. Satisfied, they sent us their acquaintances. There was a rumor that “Aldo was there flesh (meat in the Tuscan dialect, ed) good “”. “Today the form has changed, but not the substance”, adds Aldo, “customers place orders by telephone and we ship all over Italy”.

The ability to adapt to the changing times was crucial to survive during the pandemic, when “the country emptied itself, no one was walking around and a ghostly atmosphere reigned in the streets. We, with home deliveries of meat, saved ourselves a little. Even if unfortunately the restaurant had to stop ». On closer inspection, however, at the time the same restaurant was born out of a spirit of adaptation: «In the 70s, when most of the women were at home, at seven in the morning we already had a queue outside the butcher’s. Housewives bought the meat early because their dishes – stew, boiled meat, lung – required long hours of cooking. Then customs have evolved, women have begun to work more and more outside the home and have less and less desire to spend a lot of time in the kitchen; 11 years ago I said to myself: do you no longer want to buy it raw? Then I’ll make you find the meat cooked. The idea for The delights of Aldo was born like this».

Thanks to the top quality ingredients, al know how of the landlord («In the relationship with the customer nobody beats me», says Aldo), at the low prices and the skill of Giorgina who supervises all the preparations in the kitchen, the restaurant didn’t take long to take off. In 2016 Aldo was awarded, alongside Gualtiero Marchesi, the MAM-Master of Art and Craft recognition, promoted by the Cologni Foundation in collaboration with Alma, the International School of Italian Cuisine. At the same time, he received a special call: the fame of his dishes had reached the Vatican where, for the annual party of the gendarmerie, he was asked to set up a banquet. Aldo doesn’t think twice and rushes to Rome. An hour after the beginning of the event, he telephones his wife: «Giorgina, you don’t know what a beauty here. The porchetta is devoured in four bites! ». Then, he sees that bystanders huddle around a figure. Try to see its face but, not being very high (it does not exceed the meter and 70), fatigue. He turns to the guard next to him: “Who is that gentleman, the Pope?” It was not the Pope, but Dr. Domenico Giani, now president of the Eni Foundation, then head of the Vatican gendarmerie, his undercover client for years, as well as the one who had chosen him for the catering of the party. The success of the event meant that Aldo was recalled to the Holy See several times, on the occasion of receptions with the Heads of State and even for the 80th anniversary of His Holiness.

But what The delights it was a promising activity it was sensed from the beginning. For the inauguration, the square was so crowded that people found it hard to move. “Today, for the reopening, we would have liked to have organized something equally grandiose. For obvious reasons, this was not possible. We just shared a dessert with our 12 employees, who were as happy as we are to get back to work. And to recover an old tradition: the first years I accompanied the dishes with a long explanation on the origin of the meat, on the type of maturation, on the cut. I wanted every bite to tell a story. I’ll be back to do it. Even because, this summer, I expect a large influx of tourism, especially Italian which, between us, is what I prefer“. «Nobody like the Italians», Giorgina echoes, «knows how to appreciate, thank and even gratify us with expressions of affection».

One above all, Aldo and Giorgina received it from that Mr. Giani who, first, introduced them to the Vatican: for their 50 years of marriage he invited them to stay at the Casa Santa Marta, the building where the Papa. They slept in the room next to his and had dinner at two tables with him. «Just think, we were served, but he filled the plate himself. Francesco’s humility is indescribable », Aldo recalls. «The next day he celebrated a mass for a few close friends and then he received us for a short interview. We could not have spent a better anniversary ».

Anniversary that has its roots in a summer evening in 1964. Giorgina was competing for the title of Miss Monte San Savino and Aldo was courting her: «We were at the PCI club. I convinced my friends to vote for her. He didn’t win, but he danced with me all evening and, in the end, I won his love ». «More than anything else, my sympathy», she whispers as soon as Aldo leaves, «to take me home he had borrowed the car and was trying to convince me that it was his. Too bad that the car was so big that he, as a little boy, didn’t get to hit the brake: he drove all lying down. It made me smile and want to see him again. Three years later we got married ».

If they were to name the happiest moment of a life together, after the birth of children, of course, Giorgina goes back before success, to the days when street vendors worked in the surrounding villages to round up buffet!”). Aldo, on the other hand, looks ahead: “Our whole life has been happy. And now, the idea of ​​leaving electrifies me as when I was a boy. I haven’t lived it yet but I can already say it: the summer that awaits us will be one of the best moments of our life».

To subscribe to Vanity Fair, click here.