Valvona & Crolla

14 October 2022|Read time 3 mins

Learn all about Valvona & Crolla, a popular delicatessen and Italian wine merchant in Scotland's capital, Edinburgh

A friend has given me a copy of the beautiful book 'A year at an Italian table'. Written by Mary Contini, the book pays homage to well-loved Edinburgh delicatessen and cafe Valvona & Crolla.

Valvona & Crolla: A year at an Italian table

The Edinburgh shop, located at 19 Elm Row, is Scotland's oldest delicatessen and Italian wine merchant. 

From humble origins in 1934, when it mostly served Edinburgh's fledgling Italian community, the shop has since acquired national fame and now also sells products online via its website.

Recommended by food writer

Valvona & Crolla began life as a simple market stall.

But by the 1950s it had grown so successful it featured as a recommended supplier of extra-virgin olive oil in Elizabeth David's cookbooks, which promoted home cooking and included recipes from Britain and abroad. 

Today Valvona and Crolla has a reputation as one of the capital's leading eateries, with a cafe and restaurant on-site, as well as a gift and book shop.

Each summer the shop is converted into a venue for Edinburgh's world-famous festival season.  

It even appears in Alexander McCall Smith's 44 Scotland Street series, which recounts the lives of intriguing characters in the city of Edinburgh and features many other famous Edinburgh institutions.

It is not just locals who adore Valvona & Crolla but critics love it too. 

The cafe at the back of the Elm Row shop has been featured for ten years running in the Which? Good Food Guide.

Own-baked bread 

If you visit the shop, you will find own-baked bread, cakes, and biscuits, alongside a range of cheese, champagne, cookery books, coffee, tea, kitchenware, pasta, rice, salami, sausages, oil, vinegar, port, dessert wine, whisky and wine.

Edinburgh is fortunate in its many Italian restaurants, founded by hard-working immigrant families who moved to the city seeking better fortunes.

'A year at an Italian table' gives a better sense of the owner's struggles to build their business, often amid great difficulties.

Cooking for family and friends

The book contains an appealing warmth in its writing. 

I identified with author Mary Contini when she writes: 'I am at my happiest when I am cooking for family and friends; a pot of my favourite sugo (a tomato sauce for pasta) simmering on the stove, the table set for supper and a bottle of wine ready to pour'; My idea of heaven too!

You can experience this joy at Reserve Apartments self-catering properties in Edinburgh, all of which contain kitchens for guests to use during their stay.

Mouth-watering recipes

Reading 'A year at an Italian table' offers a fascinating slice of Edinburgh's culinary life pre and post-World War II. 

The author's anecdotes are interspersed with mouth-watering recipes handed down through generations.

Contini can even recall a time when local haddock fishermen who caught squid and monkfish by mistake threw them back into the sea as worthless.

Why not purchase the book yourself and pay a visit to Valvona and Crolla to cook up the ideal dish for friends and family?

Tastes change

Tastes and times may have changed, but this book is a pleasant way of reconnecting with Edinburgh's culinary past.

Connect with Edinburgh's food scene for yourself on a self-catering trip to the city.