Loste Café, a preview of the project in Milan from two guys from Noma

A nice news awaits Milan. If all goes well, Loste Cafè, tagline “caffè & vino”, will open at the end of February in Via Guicciardini 5 (Viale Piave-Porta Monforte). This is the first important project of two Italian professionals in their thirties, namely Stefano Ferraro and Lorenzo Cioli. The former from Piedmont, the latter from Tuscany, they met at Noma in Copenhagen 5 years ago.

Their respective curriculums speak for both: Ferraro, we recalled a while ago, will end in Milan a long phase as globetrotter. Latest task: head-pastry chef at Rene Redzepi's restaurant after working in London with Joël Robuchon, Gordon Ramsay and Alberto Hernandez and then in Hong Kong (Armani Aqua), Tokyo (Collage at the Conrad Hotel) and in Dubai and Sydney as pastry-chef with Jason Atherton. Cioli instead returns to Italy after being the sommelier-wine buyer at Iluka in Copenhagen and acquiring significant experience in London (Viajante with Nuno Mendes, The Arts Club and The Square), at Noma (in Copenhagen and in the pop-up in Australia) and at 108, where he spied the profession from Norwegian Tim Wandelboe, a guru of specialty coffee.

«We've been working on this project for a while», Ferraro says. He's also involved his Japanese wife Machiko, previously restaurant manager at Inua in Tokyo. «We were unsure whether to choose Rome or Milan but in the end we chose the latter given the public is more in tune with our intentions. Loste, a blend of Lorenzo and Stefano, will be a café and pastry-shop with a wood oven which we inherited from the previous business, a pizzeria. And then, when the time will come, it will also be a wine bar. We have self-financed ourselves, we have no investors. We'll start slow, step by step».

The project, some 30 square metres designed by architect Giulio Marchesi, seats 12-15 people, with a bar with an oak top, stools all around and a very expensive Marzocco machine, a sign of the desire to go beyond the Italian traditionalist attitude: «The focus will be on coffee», Ferraro explains, «we will buy it from roasters that have a direct relationships with producers. We will start with the classic varieties of coffee, and we'll gradually add filtered coffee, all from our blends. Espresso will cost a little more than average because it will be of the highest quality and because this will help us support the work of those who harvest it. We would like to start by baking 50/70 pastries per day, with a Scandinavian approach, hence butterier: croissants, cinnamon & cardamom rolls, brioches feuillettée, cruffins… but without neglecting the Mediterranean taste».

Over time they will also increase the savoury options: «We would also like to serve a good focaccia and a daily special for lunch, well made and simple. Our dream does not stop here».

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso