the rebirth of Necci…and not only

The Bar Necci will reopen tomorrow night in the quartiere Pigneto, only 14 days after the arson attack. The same builders and carpenters who refurbished it have re-created the caffé, apparently only the original wallpaper was impossible to source but all the rest should be there!

Check out La Repubblica’s article…the Bar not only was the stage of Pasolini’s “Accattone”, but also for the movie “Questioni di cuore” with Antonio Albanese (the fabulous “Minister of Terror” on tv, “Tage und Wolke” on screen) and Kim Rossi Stuart (photo).

Mein Mann and I are already looking forward to those fabulous lemon-scented cream croissants…

PS

Sunday 19th, today we saw the movie by Francesca Archibugi, not to be missed. The idea of rebirth after a traumatic episode. An unconventional scenery of Rome, an old Fiat 500 and great actors.

The storyboard comes from a novel by Umberto Contarello, listen to the interview with the author by clicking on the links. The transition between eternal teenage, maturity and old age and the risk of jumping the middle step, or missing it altogether. A late Bildungsroman.

There is also aninteresting interview which goes beyond the autobiographic plot of the novel/film…

burnt after eating

“Sunday morning, the 5th, we meet at Necci for breakfast”. Well, we didn’t. The Necci was a victim of arson. Maybe some people were disturbed by the friendly traffic of pedestrians around the cafe’. The once cosy atmosphere is now covered in black dust. How sad. Only the portrait of Pasolini remained intact…We hope they will re-open soon…we can’t live without their fabulous croissants and witzig foto-montaggi…

cappucci-nation: Bar Necci al Pigneto

Where can you find the best cornetti (or croissants) in Rome?

Where can you sit down in a cozy interior or on a leafy terrasse without being ripped off?

Where can you see the last pini marittimi of the Pigneto, in between the Casilina and Prenestina roman roads?

Where, more importantly, can you hang around Pasolini’s neighborhood and sip your cappuccino right on the set of the film “Accattone”?

At Bar Necci!

Today Mein Mann and I with our dear friends and neighbours N&M, we had an appointment in one of San Lorenzo’s best patisseries for breakfast but we arrived there a dash too early. So we headed for the Pigneto, an eastern border area of Rome you already are familiar with, because this rainy morning deserved an indulgent breakfast…

At Bar Necci 1924 he cappuccino is good, but the croissants, pains au chocolat and danish are su-perb. No semi-industrial rechauffe’ pastry here. Butter-rich croissants filled with creme patissiere with a hint of lemon, excellent danish (or caracoles)…and a very cosy living-room where DIY helps keeping prices reasonable and the community happy. That’s the kind of value added that Mr Brule’ would call “Attention to Retail”…and that justifies us parting with our beloved Euros.

Also, in this bar you can do a stop over on our European Regional Softdrinks Tour because there is another brand of Gazosa, Bitter and Spuma, typical old-fashioned italian pre-coke refreshmens: Paoletti. Basic packaging, green mineral-water-style bottles with a colorful a’ la p(l)age label.

If we hadn’t chosen to go one step beyond, to the Pigneto, and we hadn’t crossed the railway on the pedestrian bridge, under the pouring rain, we wouldn’t have noticed that the Specials will be in town, in february…Yes, we love ska…

….and talking about optical graphic black and white, at the Bar Necci advertising from the 70s is a treat…!

(bad quality pictures, taken during a late summer evening…will post better ones at the next croissant craving!)

Pigneto: fabbrica della memoria

Good news. The Cinema Aquila in the Pigneto has been refurbished and is being now reopened.

This week there are 3 movies:

- La fabbrica dei tedeschi - on the ThyssenKrupp factory disaster

- Billo- le Grand Dakhaar – multikulti film, available only in 2 theaters. Tells the story about a guy from Senegal whose dream is to become a stylist

- Burn after reading – er… Recommended Annual Intake of Clooney+Pitt.

Il Pigneto is not the traditional Rome you are used to. Like San Lorenzo, it is more Kreuzberg than Trastevere. Railway, viaduct, factories, immigration make these parts of the city more urban than the typical aristocrat-meet-peasants-and-shepherds imagery of the center of the Urbe, who still depicts Rome more like a big village full of Villas and Vedute rather like a western european city.

The market in the Pigneto pedestrian area is a mosaic of gig leaflets, graffitis, ads, aubergines…like a  mini- Barbes Rochechouart!

This is the kind of Rome described by Ascanio Celestini. (If you didn’t have the chance of seeing or hearing him performing “Scemo di Guerra”, get a video or a podcast or read the book…).

And after the good news, the surprise. In the Pigneto an initiative similar to the Schoeneberg one was initiated this summer: putting history on the lamp-posts – La Storia nelle Strade. In Central Rome we have beautiful ivory tableaux explaining the historical monuments, or white ones signalling important shooting locations of famous Cinema Italiano scenes. But nothing about history. In the Pigneto a parcour has been created, telling the story of people who were active in the Resistenza and for their activities were later deported to lager camps. Like the story of Antonio Atzori, immigre’ from Sardinia, in Via Ascoli Piceno.

The project was realised together with the families of the Rebels and with the local schools, with a view to intensifying the links in the community among young and old, people who lived those terrible days, and children who risk not finding these facts in their school history books…