Painting Italy .......... goodbye to Ciao

The first time I ate at Ciao’s I was hooked.

We were in the main railway station in Rome and against my better judgement Tina suggested we go there to eat.

Now fast food in a railway station even the stylish Termini I thought would be a disaster.

But not so.  There was a range of fresh food most of it cooked as you watched and a shedful of fruit and salads and heaps of good bread.

Moreover it was cheap and as a result the place was full.

And so when we got back to Varese I adopted the local Ciao’s.

Whenever we were in the town centre I contrived to call in and then without warning it had gone.

We had last eaten there in the April of 2013 and when we went back near the end of the year it had gone.

I found a newspaper account of their sudden closure which was as much a surprise to the employees as to us.*

And now the place is empty along with another at the airport and I suspect the one at the Termini which is why I asked Peter to paint the old Varese restaurant from a picture I took in 2012, after all if I can’t eat there I can at least have a permanent reminder of the place.

*Addio a Ciao e Spizzico, di Redazione Varese News 30 maggio 2013 http://www.varesenews.it/2013/05/addio-a-ciao-e-spizzico/58961/

Painting; Ciao, Varese © 2015 Peter Topping from a photograph by Andrew Simpson 2012

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Eating at a Ciao......all that is good to eat

When I was told that we were going to eat in the main railway station in Rome I was not impressed.

Now I know the quality of food in our railway stations has improved, and it is unfair to judge eating while you wait for a train by the standards of the 1970s or even the 1990s. But I had too many memories of uncleared tables, lukewarm over milky coffee and stale sandwiches.

So I went along more out of polite duty than anything else. But how wrong can you be.  And judging by the numbers of people piling into the place I was very wrong.

Ciao is a chain of food out lets, and you can find them on station autostrada stops and in towns.  There is one in Varese and that was where we ended up the other day for a midday meal.

There is a wide variety of food much of which is cooked in front of you.  Fresh fruit and salad dishes which look and are fresh and a range of hot meals.  So here was a beef stew with various roast vegetables, including aubergines, a dish of rice and spinach coking gently in the pan to order and one of my favourites, pasta, pesto, potatoes and long green beans.

We settled for two plates of the pasta, some sparkly water and enough wine for two glasses each.  It came to under €15 which I reckon was pretty good going.
Now Varese does have a MacDonald’s and a Burger King as well plenty of more traditional bars and restaurants, but Ciao is there out in front.

And the other customers must have thought so to.  Here were families, a sprinkling of office workers and a few business people.  All in all it was almost the same mix that we had encountered at the Termini in Rome.  With just the one exception.  In Rome a stately grey haired and expensively dressed couple were sitting opposite.  The clothes, the jewellery and the very manner suggested serious money and yet here they were in the Termini rubbing shoulders with shop assistants, tourists and all the other floating trade in a busy railway station.

And for me being old fashioned and a little too fussy, all the tables were clean, the staff kept up with the departing customers who left us a good choice of tables clear of the remnants of other peoples meals.

So all in all not a bad place to eat.

Picture; from the collection of Andrew Simpson