Today I walked into downtown Bologna where I came across a wonderful place called Eataly (
http://www.eataly.it/eatalybologna/bologna.lasso), located on the street which is an amazing outdoor market (most of which was closed today since it was Sunday) of fresh produce, cheese and meat shops, pasta makers, and more. Eataly is a spacious three-level bookstore/food-spot with books on all three levels, and a different restaurant/bar on each level. The first floor, where I ate, was a bar with coffee and panini. The second floor had more of a restaurant, with the tables spread out among the bookshelves. The third floor was similar but was a wine bar. One of the coolest places I have seen in Bologna so far. I thought it was a really cool idea to integrate this food (all of which is top quality) within the bookstore. There are also groceries (a beautiful selection of dried pastas, jams, meats, cheeses, wines, seasonings, etc...) scattered about as well. A quick look on their website (
www.eataly.it) revealed that they work with the Slow Food movement, and have a few locations throughout Italy focused on distributing high-quality products at reasonable prices directly from the producers. There seems to be a huge on in Torino, so hopefully I can check that out. They don't say anything about the bookstore part of it, so I'm not sure if that is in every one. I plan on coming back here often.
I got this panino of mortadella (Bologna's famous pork-product, a far-cry from the American version of bologna) and a sparkling water for only €3.50. Totally delicious and clearly made of top-notch ingredients.
As a snack I had some bread with some surprisingly delicious cherry tomatoes, and for dinner the same but with pasta and parmigiano cheese.
