Little Italy

London’s Clerkenwell might now be synonymous with converted warehouses, design firms and gastropubs but the neighbourhood was once known as Little Italy. By 1895, it was home to 12,000 Italians – people who had emigrated to the UK in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars and the Italian wars of unification. They brought their coveted craft knowhow, gelato and the city’s first delicatessen, Terroni, where locals stock up on De Cecco pasta and Mulino Bianco biscuits to this day. But this community is now much diminished and lives on thanks to one institution: London’s oldest Italian social club, Casa Italiana.

Italians from all walks of life – and now all London postcodes – come here to celebrate birthdays, weddings and christenings after a ceremony next door at St Peter’s Italian Catholic Church. And as the flags on the walls testify, almost every region of Italy is represented. The post-Napoleonic war period saw immigrants hailing largely from the north but, after the Second World War, Italians from southern provinces such as Campania, Calabria and Puglia, as well as Sicily, left in search of a better life. “At Casa Italiana, expats found a shared affinity for the motherland,” says volunteer Mario Zeppetelli, whose family moved to London from Sicily when he was three.

The survival of the club is not guaranteed. The Italian-loving French restaurant group Big Mamma organised a riotous fundraiser at Casa Italiana last year to encourage a new generation to uphold the club’s legacy. Its publicity has not only attracted new members but also a fresh appreciation for the social value of the establishment, which attracts some 1,000 visitors every week. As MONOCLE takes a seat at the club’s weekly Tuesday lunch, a deep sense of affection for la patria can be felt. Every week since 1984, at exactly 13.00, about 70 first and second-generation Italians and Italophiles gather for a two-course meal. On today’s menu is Tuscan bean and guanciale soup showered with parmesan, followed by veal escalope cooked in butter and sage. A couple of glasses of Italian wine washes it all down.

“It’s an intergenerational affair,” says Alberto Minghetti, one of the youngest members. He moved from Modena to the UK a few years ago to study and regularly visits the club, finding comfort in the strong sense of nostalgia. “After Brexit, younger people of Italian heritage are choosing to apply for Italian citizenship,” says volunteer Massimo Pini, whose parents immigrated from Parma in the 1950s. Pini has been coming to Casa Italiana for more than 40 years and was even married at the church next door in 2000. “Once they hold the passport in their hands, they feel that they should reconnect with their Italian roots. That’s where Casa Italiana comes in.”

After lunch, guests knock back an espresso and push the tables aside as Domenico Modugno’s 1958 Nel blu dipinto di blu (better known as Volare) rings out. It’s time for dancing. The chatter switching between Italian and English epitomises the club’s bicultural outlook.“People ask me whether I’m Italian or English. I say, ‘Why can’t I have them both?’” says Pietro Molle, the organiser of the weekly lunch. “At Casa Italiana, we take the best of the two cultures and combine them.” The proof? After half an hour of waltzing, the English and Italian national anthems round off monocle’s uplifting afternoon in Little Italy. All rise. — L
136 Clerkenwell Road, London EC1