New Lavazza headquarter including a museum, Slowfood bistro and gourmet restaurant

by hagerini

We are in the year 1894 when Luigi Lavazza bought for 20 USD a little grocery store in the via San Tommaso 7 street in Turin, Italy. Beside other groceries, he sold raw coffee, roasted and blended according to personal recipes from customers. This process brought him to the idea to combine different types of coffee from different geographical areas and sell it as a final product to every customer. Due to the huge demand, he had to move into a bigger store in via San Tommaso 10 where still today Lavazza is running a coffee bar and restaurant. Lavazza is claimed to be the market leader of espresso in Italy and is present in over 90 countries.

On June 8, 2018, the company inaugurated their new headquarters called “la Nuvola” (the cloud). On some of the total 30,000 square meters the new headquarter offers for the public the following attractions:

Interactive Museum

Inside the Lavazza shop, visitors can buy their entry ticket for the museum. Also there you will get a lanyard with a plastic espresso cup which will give you access to certain interactive points spread all over the museum. Putting the cup on a certain touch point allows you to listen to stories, see multimedia content or even make a picture at the photo booth that will be saved on the cup and can be sent to your personal e-mail at the end of the museum course. The tour starts with the company´s milestone wall and an ancient coffee bar equipped with old pieces like a coffee maker or a balance. After traveling back in history the visitor gets into a haptic area where the coffee bean´s journey from the farmer in South America to the company´s laboratory can be discovered. Through the entire tour, visitors have a lot of opportunities to interact and thereby obtain even more information: Drawers can be pulled out, coffee beans felt and displays operated. My favorite part was a room with selected coffee machines, starting with a very classy machine from the early 1900 ´s and ending with the futuristic ISSpresso, the first espresso coffee machine designed for use in space. With this fascinating machine, the first espresso coffee was made in space by an astronaut on 3 May 2015. When leaving the orbit you will gain an insight into the close connection from Lavazza to art. Several design pieces always in relation to coffee are exhibited here. For example, you can admire a dress made out of coffee packagings or make a picture with Lavazza´s”Carmencita” design figures at the photo booth.

Summarized the museum offers a lot to discover and thanks to the passionate design together with all the interactive touch points, will not become monotonous. It´s definitely a hot spot for coffee lovers or better said for fans of the Lavazza lifestyle. Who expects to learn more about (Italian) coffee history will be disappointed, the museum has a strict focus on the company itself.

Slow food bistro

After a short walk over the campus outside of Lavazza´s main office, you will arrive at the bistro. It is separated into three “islands”: The first one named  “¡Tierra!” is for lovers of green and healthy cuisine, the second one “San Tommaso 10” for strictly Italian street food enthusiasts and the third one called “Murisengo”, where traditional Piedmontese and Italian dishes, in general, find space.

Condividere – gourmet restaurant

“Condividere” in Latin means “divide” and “with”, this word is reflecting the new concept behind the cuisine of the chef Federico Zanasi. He analyzed for months the history of Italian cuisine and was studying the texts of the University of Gastronomic Sciences of Italy. Zanasi then reinterpreted it with a skillful mix of tradition and innovation, always with the focus on high-quality raw materials. For the first time, the same attention and importance will be given to the first part of the dinner as to the tasting of the desserts and the final coffee rite of the after a completed meal. The beautiful interior has been designed by Dante Ferretti, a multiple Oscar-winning set designer.

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