…On our walk to the conference we found a store called Eataly. This was just not any old store, however. At first glance, it appeared to be the Italian version of a fancy Whole Foods. Upon multiple visits throughout our stay, we found this place to be much more- a restaurant, a bar, a bakery and a place to get really good locally produced food. Outside of the store you could buy pizza cooked in wood fired ovens (pictured left) and inside there were copious amounts of food, drink, kitchen supplies and even a museum. I also found that this was the only place to really sit down and enjoy a couple of Italy’s up and coming breweries…they had a full beer bar and the largest microbrewery section that we could find. One of the things that we were most impressed with was the fish section…the large swordfish head greeted us at the fish counter and everything was pretty much sold whole…which you don’t see too much of in the US. Word has it that there is an Eataly planned for New York City in 2009, so it will be interesting to see how that store works out.
-Josh
