Little taste of Italy

With a greeting as bright and cheerful as the sunlight streaming through the open door, Victoria Cave greets a visitor to Milano Espresso and Gelato.

The Cimbali coffee machine offers an aromatic welcome of its own as it merrily gurgles and hisses its way toward brewing another cup of coffee. Visual and tactile senses are warmly revived by the sight of exquisitely crafted Italian ceramics and the look and feel of handmade hardwood tables.

When Victoria Cave and her husband, Mark, opened their business Verity Blue in New Market in 2002 their specialties were tables and Italian ceramics. When they moved the business to Charlottesville in 2004 and set up shop in the West Main Market, they expanded their vision to include Milano, which is modeled after Italian coffee bars. In early July the couple moved Verity Blue and Milano to the Pink Warehouse at 100 W. South St. This gave the Caves the opportunity to add authentic Italian sandwiches to their offerings.

“When we were at Main Street Market, we were coffee and others were doing food and sandwiches,” Victoria Cave said. “When we moved here, we decided to offer what they call bar food in Italy.

“This includes light, toasted sandwiches called panini. They’re made with homemade ciabatta bread and provolone cheese that’s lightly grilled with olive oil. You can add different items, such as Genoa salami, rosemary ham, basil, tomato.

“We also offer tramezzini, which are little Italian sandwiches made from white bread. We brought in Marisa Catalano, who is a well-known chef here in town and has an Italian background, to help us get our menu off the ground in terms of simple Italian fare.”

Each business serves to bring a bit of authentic Italy to Charlottesville. Mark Cave became enamored with Italy and its culture while studying in Venice when he was a student at Wake Forest University. His wife became a fan during their honeymoon in the Sardinia region.

“During our honeymoon we were riding around the countryside on a moped and wearing cut-off jeans,” Victoria Cave said with a laugh. “We saw this beautiful restaurant with crisp white linen tablecloths, and we didn’t think we were dressed right to go in.

“But the owners welcomed us with open hearts and treated us as if we were a king and queen. That’s the same kind of warm, welcoming spirit we have here. We feel our strength is our passion for the subject matter and our presentation.”

The new location even offers Italian language lessons taught by Christina Ball who is a professor of Italian studies. Spanish and French language lessons also are offered.

Mark Cave said the thing that unites all three businesses is the love of Italy and its culture. Having grown up in Georgia and North Carolina, he feels Italians and Southerners have much in common.

“Like Southerners, Italians are very open, warm, welcoming people who would invite you into their home, sit you down, make you a big meal and treat you like a best friend even if you were a complete stranger,” Mark Cave said.

“What I think the Italians may have that we as Americans don’t is a slower pace of life. That enables them to enjoy the gifts they’re given and enjoy the beautiful things we often tend to take for granted here.

“The reason we chose to move our businesses here to Charlottesville is because it is so much like Europe. It’s a pedestrian-oriented community that has a relaxed pace.”

Milano derives its name from the coffee bar that came from Milan. Serena Weaver is one of the baristas, and she knows an authentic Italian coffee bar when she sees it.

“My mother is from Venice, and we go back to Italy every summer,” said Weaver, who recently graduated from the University of Virginia, where she studied Italian and urban and environmental planning.

“When I was at UVa, I would come to Milano to study. I loved it because it was such a comfortable environment.

“This is exactly like a coffee bar you would find in Italy. And the gelato is fantastic.”

Gelato is a dense, creamy Italian ice cream with a rich flavor. Milano offers a variety of flavors such as banana caramel praline, Madagascar bourbon, mango and pistachio.

“The flavor of our gelato is really powerful and extremely natural,” Victoria Cave said. “The person who makes ours is Pete Palazzolo, a third-generation Italian who lives in Michigan. “He studied gelato artistry in Italy. He gets a lot of the fruit he puts in his gelato from his own orchard.”

The hand-painted ceramics in Verity Blue are all made in Deruta, a small Italian town north of Rome. The Caves know their suppliers personally and do business on a handshake basis.

Two of the main ceramic lines they carry are CAMA and MOD. CAMA offers high-end quality and MOD is less pricey. MOD pieces also are high quality, but the painting is not quite as detailed as are the more expensive items.

The shop has an assortment of hand-turned wooden bowls made by both local and out-of-state craftsmen.

“We like being a place where you can get a wedding gift from $50 to $100,” Victoria Cave said. “We are also a place where you can get an art piece, like this large CAMA vase that’s $500.

“One of our most expensive items is this plate with a painting of a lady that’s $2,000. But right beneath it is this [shallow] centerpiece bowl that’s made from marble that’s $100.

“We’re a young family ourselves with two children, and we want to be family friendly. So we like to have a lot of different price points for people who come in to visit us.”

The dining table has a special place of honor in Verity Blue, just as it does in Italy. Milano’s tables are all handcrafted and range in price from $800 to $3,000 for a massive pine table with a top that’s three inches thick.

“The art of the table is a unifying principle for us,” Mark Cave said. “In Italy the table is where life begins and ends.

“It’s where you eat, sip your coffee, admire beautiful handmade ceramics and talk with one another. What we were impressed with in Italy was that the meal was the unifying point across the generations.

“There were kids, parents and grandparents at the table. It’s really the family interacting. There is a formality to it that makes the children slow down and interact with the adults, rather than eating really quickly and running off to play.”

Offering food that’s so good a person doesn’t want to rush through it is certainly something Italians are famous for. They also love their coffee and Milano strives to meet those lofty standards as well.

“We worked so hard over the years to bring about what they call in Italy the ‘perfect sip.’ ” Mark Cave said. “I bought the latest and greatest Italian espresso coffee machine that grinds, tamps and senses the humidity in the air and makes the appropriate adjustments.

“And we use the best beans from Italy called Lavazza. We work on training the baristas to understand the difference between the Seattle-style presentation and an Italian presentation.

“If you like Italy and the European coffee tradition, we try to be as close to that as we possibly can.”

Milano coffee prices range from $1.80 to $4.80 and are served in porcelain cups, unless they’re to go. Sandwiches start at $2. The gelato is priced from $2.90 to $4.40.

From time to time tourists from Italy find their way to Milano’s front door. They are, of course, the ultimate judges of what is authentic Italian.

“I’ve seen Italians and Europeans walk in the door and literally start tearing up,” Mark Cave said. “I’ve actually had a few people just stare, and then start crying because it reminded them so much of home.

“We try to create an atmosphere in which people can enjoy the European experience. We don’t try to do anything else but that.”

Milano and Verity Blue

100 W. South St., just down from Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall

Milano is open 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily

Verity Blue’s hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.