The Marinaro, or Sailor, is Maurizio Maggio, a young fishmonger in love with his job and the fish he with his wife Maria and sister Catia adeptly put on display every day. His stand is in the covered market on Piazza Don Grioli, in Turin’s Mirafiori Nord quarter, and has been there ever since it was first opened by Maurizio’s mother Celeste and father Totò in 1968. They too came from a background in the trade since, back in the 1920s, grandfather Francesco was already selling fish from his cart round Gallipoli, in Puglia, where the family lived before moving to Turin.
It’s no coincidence that the immaculate well-stocked stand has always been known locally as “the fishmonger of Salento” (Salento being the district in Puglia where Gallipoli is situated), even though the fish comes from all along the Italian coastline (Sardinia, Liguria, Sicily) and the oysters from Brittany. Marinaro’s specialities are raw crustaceans and seafood (scampi, mussels, clams, tartare, giant red shrimp, squid) and the ready dish, blue lobster Catalan-style.
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