Truly Italian RootsTruly Italian – AUTHENTICITY – Davide Longoni
“Being contemporary means being able to read the times, while staying authentic” – says the protagonist of the fifth story of the Truly Italian journey. He was able to make one of the oldest jobs in the world even more special, while preserving the authenticity of the gestures and the raw materials. We are talking about Davide Longoni, baker, entrepreneur, artist of life. Authentic, just like his bread.
“You cannot live without bread, just as you cannot live without desire”, says Davide Longoni at the end of the editorial of L’integrale, the magazine he created on the culture of bread. True taste, the character of an eternal time, the scent that smells of history, no matter if personal or universal, a horizon of calm and voluptuousness: this is what comes to mind when we think of freshly baked bread.
On the pages of the magazine – made with 100% recycled fibers – he reconciles his passion for literature, photography, travel and nature with his profession, one of the oldest in the world, that of a baker.
After graduating in Modern Literature in Milan, he found himself working as a photographer in the Magnum Photos photographic agency, perhaps the most important in the world. But that was not enough.
His intellectual impetus needs a physical counterpart, something in which hands, body, mind, wisdom come together in a sensorial experience, something that starts from the roots, of himself and, why not? Of the world.
The answer is close: the historic bakery that his father had opened in the 1960s in Carate Brianza. Here is the right opportunity to be able to work on a product that allows him to follow all stages of processing: from the choice of raw materials to the dough, from leavening to baking to direct sales.
A few years pass from that choice and Davide’s action and enthusiasm radiate and spread like the scent of his bread: his first space in via Tiraboschi was soon followed by other laboratories and points of sale, and the range of products expanded, from the classical Milanese michette to the most various kinds of breads.
Everything started “from four pillars: sourdough, stone-ground flours, large format, ancient grains” and, in 2019, he entered the empyrean of the best Italian bakers, in a continuum of international titles and awards. It is no coincidence that his book is entitled “Davide’s sense for flour. History of bread and passion. An all-Italian company “.
Today he heads a team of 45 people, who work between his three shops and two laboratories.
In 2018 he launched the PAU – the movement of Urban Agricultural Bakers – with Pasquale Polito from Forno Brisa in Bologna and Matteo Piffer from the Panificio Moderno in Isera. In the Manifesto of the movement, we read that “making bread is an agricultural act”, “the baker is a landscape architect”, “bread has a name and surname”.
Authentic in spirit and substance, as a good collector of sensations, Davide likes to take all the time necessary to enjoy a good coffee in the morning. “The day starts with more softness – says Davide – if I and Tatiana, my partner, take the time to wake up to make two espressos”.
We at Gaggia share the same spirit: no matter how much you grow, how big you become, how far you go: the important thing is to stay true to yourself, to maintain the same love that drives you to start a business and seek authenticity in everything we do.
Find Davide on his website and on Instagram @panificiodavidelongoni!