Italy is still in the grip of a recession – a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters, for some time now and according to the official ISTAT figures, youth unemployment is now at a staggering 36.90 percent but not all is gloom and doom in this area.
There are still some younger Italians willing to start up a business and make a go of it.
Back in 2013 we spoke with Giulio Turriani about his project, La Galera in Fornaci di Barga (article here) – a restaurant with beer and good live music. From that project was born the move to Piazza Annunziata, one of the first piazzas that visitors to Barga come across when coming into the city for the first time but was generally perceived as a kind of transit piazza as people move further into the city towards the larger piazzas of Piazza Angelio and Piazza Salvo Santi.
All that changed in 2014 with the opening of a new restaurant with Francesco Piacentini and Giulio Turriani at the helm situated under Palazzo Mordini – Locanda di Mezzo (full article here)
Now almost two years later, Giulio Turriani and his team (now comprising 5 members) are ready to expand their operations and have spent most of the winter building a French style bistrot under the expert guidance of the architect Massimiliano Lanciani in one of the cantinas below the Locanda.
As you can hear in the interview above with Giulio (in Italiano) they have now increased the possibility of seating another 15 customers in the newly furnished room – now called the Bistrò di Mezzo.
This Saturday at 6pm, the ribbon will be cut for the inauguration of the new Bistrò with the possibility to sample some of the great food being prepared in the Locanda and with music provided by the jazz singer Michela Lombardi, ably backed by the keyboards of Andrea Garibaldi and double bass of Nino Pellegrini.
To celebrate the opening of the new room, an installation of recent work by Keane called “The Barga Pop Tarot Paintings” based around his exploration into the world of Tarot of Marseille cards restored by Philippe Camoin and Alexandre Jodorowsky (article here) and also the possibility of Tarot card readings by Paola Marchi who has studied for many years the Tarot cards under Philippe Camion.