My grandmother would have cried in this place, and I mean that as the highest compliment. She spent decades chasing the taste of real Italian cooking, and I finally found it waiting inside a market in Missouri.
The moment I stepped past the register, cured meats hung overhead and imported cheese filled a case that stretched the length of the room. Missouri isn’t the first place people think of for authentic imports, but this market changes that assumption fast.
I picked up olive oil bottled in a region I couldn’t pronounce, pasta shapes I’d never seen at any grocery store, and a wheel of cheese the owner insisted I try before buying. My cart filled up faster than my budget allowed…