from Thomas Aurelio, Italian Correspondent, June 2015

It sometimes appears that we find the most interesting sights in the least expected places. Such an incident is one I wish to recount from a visit to a little restaurant in Como. The restaurant is not found in the city center, where the pedestrian zone forms a popular crossroads with easy traffic, but rather on a small street a few blocks west, toward the main train station, Como S. Giovanni. It is in what a tourist would call a business district, or a Comasco (so the local residents are called) would consider a normal, if narrow thoroughfare, near a variety of shops, offices, and a major police station.

The name of the restaurant is the Capitan Drake, an odd name for Italy, and like its name it’s a funny place, with a handful of tables including one at counter height over a large barrel. The night we went we found a local couple at the barrel talking loudly over an aperitivo. A bit later another, younger couple arrived, showing all the signs of a first date: they were dressed elegantly and acted shyly toward one another. An elderly Frenchman and his wife sat near the window, anticipating their filetto di manzo. For steak was the main item, the showpiece of the menu. As if to compensate for its paucity of choices, an enormous number of wine bottles surrounded us from floor to ceiling. Standard Italian bar music, or should I say a slightly less offensive variety of Italian popular music, was audible, but not to the extent that it interfered with the locale’s otherwise pleasant and quirky aspect.

The hostess was a friendly, middle-aged woman and proficient enough, and as we were eating our reasonable fare I began to wonder about the name of the restaurant: why “Capitan Drake”? I spoke to the host, perhaps the hostess’s husband. He was well-fed fellow with a round face to match his waist. His countenance lit up at the question, and through his mustache he explained that his main business was wine, especially those of New Zealand. His partner and he had a large warehouse in Como, where they received and sent shipments from and to destinations around the world. He had a nagging interest in food, and so he decided to opening this unassuming restaurant, with a simple menu framed by the grand variety of wines. He named it after Sir Francis Drake, on account of his circumnavigation of the globe. “Didn’t you see the Golden Hind?” he asked, and when I said it had escaped me, he took me to a corner of the dining area. There, in a glass showcase, rested an intricate scale model of Drake’s ship.

Readers, I hope, will appreciate this lively oddity, or perhaps, on reflection, this unnoticed commonplace: that a small restaurant in a small city in northern Italy could be named after a Tudor adventurer, an account of a wine merchant’s affinity for his international derring-do. Thus can history inspire us in many ways.