For those familiar with the Kievskaya area, the appearance of the big Eataly logo outside the new Kievsky shopping mall may be something of a surprise.
Dogged by postponements brought on by delays in the construction of the building it now occupies, it seemed for a long time as if the world’s secondlargest Italian food hall was doomed never to open. But finally, three years behind schedule, Eataly is ready to bring a taste of la dolce vita to the Russian capital.
Located on the fourth floor of the new mall, the megastore covers 7,500 square meters. Media have described Eataly as a supermarket, but there is much more to it than that.
While it is indeed a food store with 60,000 products on offer, 90 percent of which are imported from Italy, it also has 19 different restaurants, food and drink counters and cafes. Nine tasting carts will move around inside the store, offering a range of products from oil to wine.
Eataly also plans to open six onsite production laboratories, including a cheese factory, an aging room for cheeses, a classroom for master classes, and a microbrewery.
Eataly already runs 38 stores in Italy, Japan, United States, Turkey, Brazil, Korea, Germany, Denmark, the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. However, the company sees Russia as far from just another country to be added to the map, explained Oscar Farinetti, the founder and creator of Eataly, at the store’s official opening.
“Moscow is really important for us, it’s the capital of a country that has always had solid relations with Italy. There isn’t anything that compares to Eataly in Moscow,” he added.
Eataly Moscow employs 35 chefs and cooks, 240 managers, servers and hosts, as well as 76 retail, management and sales staff.
Most have been specially trained in Italy. CEO Luca Baffigo Filangeri describes Eataly as a “democratic place.” “When you come here you can buy something, you can eat everything you want, you can have a chat, read a book about food or attend a master class. You can also just come here for a cappuccino and have a walk inside – there are no barriers at the entrance,” Filangeri said in an interview with The Moscow Times.