Eatalia Your Heart Out: Where Success via a ‘Carpe Diem’ Philosophy is a Daily Necessity
Ahead of the 2018 Beijing Pizza Festival, on Oct 13-14, 11am-8pm, we take a look at the giants, the classics and the movers and shakers of the pizza scene right here in the capital.
Every morning, Gian Luca Torcoli (pictured above) heads to his Italian kitchen near the Forbidden City, where he serves up thin-crust slices of his childhood from the other side of the globe.
“Pizza is probably the most diffused food in the world,” says Torcoli, Eatalia partner and manager of the brand’s Carpe Diem restaurant. “Though it is very hard to find a decent one outside Italy.”
That’s why Torcoli, 33, decided seven years ago to deliver that taste to China. His first Eatalia Carpe Diem location, in Wudaokou, was short-lived. But since August 2012, the Di’anmen location has thrived and dished out authentic “pizza for purists,” as we wrote last year of Torcoli’s margherita, rustica, and prosciutto e funghi pies. A longtime Pizza Fest favorite in Beijing, Eatalia Carpe Diem went on to take third place in last year’s Pizza Cup.
Torcoli was born in 1985 in the small northern Italian town of Limone sul Garda, in the foothills of the Alps, “surrounded by high peaks, green forests, blue skies,” he remembers.
There, as a child, Torcoli helped his grandma run her trattoria, from managing the kitchen to picking herbs from her garden. “I so admired her endless knowledge of nature and cuisine,” he says. They spent almost every minute together, while Torcoli’s mom worked. During those years he went from capable apprentice to jack-of-all-trades, baking bread in the mornings and – in true farm-to-table fashion – raising rabbits, chickens, and pigs for slaughter.
Torcoli left home for the first time at 19 to study in Bologna, and later wound up tending bar in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, for a year. It was there he honed his craft in the hospitality industry. By then, Torcoli had the dream, but he lacked a degree. He soon moved to West Germany and earned his master’s in East Asian studies.
His next stop was Beijing, in 2011. “It was the city where we were pretending to study and the only place we could survive in China,” Torcoli says. Plus, Beijing offered HSK certification, which enabled the budding entrepreneur to finish his education early and head for the kitchen professionally.
Torcoli’s best friend, Mario Zaccagnini, founded Eatalia and, as CEO, seeks investors and manages company growth. Early on, Eatalia was operating four restaurants, but “we eventually decided to focus our energy on developing new business concepts,” Torcoli says. He and Zaccagnini formed Compleat Holdings, an umbrella company that explores potential business projects aside from the restaurant.
Torcoli serves as Eatalia’s chief operating officer, and manages Carpe Diem day-to-day.
“I care about quality,” he says. Simply put, that means importing ingredients from all the way back home in Italy. That sauce? Sourced from tomatoes and herbs in Campania. The olive oil? From Tuscany, and so on. “We’re trying to be as authentic as we can, and a point of reference for a real Italian experience.”
That much is apparent upon entering Carpe Diem from Xilou Alley in Di’anmen. Visitors step into a sleek, yet homey dining spot bursting with red hues and Last Supper-style decor. Upstairs, the quaint, courtyard veranda might be the only place in Beijing to enjoy pizza while overlooking a landscape of hutong rooftops. As one online reviewer recently wrote, “We did not expect to find a restaurant that was Italian not only in name, but also in fact!” Another testimonial was rendered speechless: “After six weeks in China, this meal was beyond words.”
Torcoli has a few words for what’s kept Eatalia Carpe Diem seizing the day in the heart of Beijing for the last six years.
“It was born as a challenge amongst young passionates,” Torcoli says. “We were moved by the wish of doing things we like to do, and of doing things well.”
Click here for all of 2018 Beijing Pizza Fest coverage.
Tickets are now on sale and early bird ticket buyers will receive a complimentary vintage bandana, while group ticket buyers (three tickets and up) will receive a free picnic blanket. Tickets are RMB 20 for early birds or RMB 30 on the door and can be purchased by scanning the QR below via WeChat:
Photos: Uni You
