In 2012, Giulia Sartori and her partner Paolo took the keys to a narrow building on Via dei Mercanti, in Modena, with fourteen tables' worth of space and no money left to change any of it. They didn't need to. The room had the kind of warm light that can't be designed — old stone, tall windows, a ceiling that remembered being a workshop a century ago.
They made two decisions in the first week that they haven't changed since. The first was to cook what they knew — the food Giulia's grandmother Elena had taught her in the kitchen in Castelfranco — rather than inventing something new. The second was to stay small on purpose. Fourteen tables, because that's how many they could look after properly.
Everyone told them an osteria like this wouldn't survive the first winter. It did.
The pasta.
The pasta is made every afternoon at four. Tortellini on Tuesdays and Thursdays, tagliatelle every day, the rest as the week calls for. Giulia rolls and fills on the same marble her grandmother used — the slab came down in a van from Castelfranco the week they opened, and it's still there, older than the restaurant and stubborn about it.
On some Fridays we run out of tortellini by nine. When we do, we apologise. We also smile a little, because it means we got the amount right this time.
The wine.
The list is short and all but one bottle is from Emilia-Romagna or within a stone's throw. We keep it short because we wanted a wine list we knew — where we've walked the vineyard, met the person who makes it, and remember the afternoon we tasted it first.
We change the list four times a year, roughly with the seasons. If you're curious about any of it, ask. We're usually too happy to stop talking about it.
The room.
Fourteen tables. No private room, no second floor. If you come at seven on a Thursday it's quiet enough to hear what the person at the next table is ordering. If you come at eight-thirty on a Saturday it's loud, in the good way — glassware, a few languages, plates going by faster than the waiters intended.
We don't turn tables quickly. If you'd like to linger after dessert with a digestivo and watch the room empty, you're in good company. Most weeks, we do the same.
— Giulia & Paolo
