History


In the early 1890s, Luigi Donatantonio, an energetic immigrant from Minori, Southern Italy arrived on English shores. Over the years that followed he made a living but missed the delights of his native Italian food, so his old friends from Italy sent him over pasta, olive oil, tomatoes, salamis and cheeses.

Many of Luigi’s fellow immigrant friends were asking to buy these products from him too and eventually in 1902 he rented premises in Clerkenwell – an area later to be named and still known as Little Italy and opened an Italian delicatessen to supply his fellow émigrés.
"The finest end product requires a quality beginning"