Oliva In Napoli

20/01/2026: ...of course, the sign of this pastry shop brings to mind the whole "mise en place" of the exuberant & baroque sweets typical of our city... babà (hypertrophic grandchildren of madeleines), "deliziose", "zuppette" (English up to a certain point... the dessert was created by the pastry chef of the Bourbon court for an English diplomat and the valet was told to bring "the English soup" hence the definition.) "Teste di moro" " sfogliate ricce" and "frolle" - our favorites. Again, the heart-stopping Christmas sweets like "roccocò" (with two convoluted, baroque-shaped "cs") and "mustaccioli" (the mustache has nothing to do with it; in ancient times, they were mixed with grape must; chocolate came later...)... These hard sweets are to the dentist what skis are to the orthopedist... Other Christmas sweets, "sapienze," "Divin'amore," "Santa Rosa" suggest the monasteries where they were created by nuns who, with gluttony, made up for the lack of anything else... And the pastiera, now purchased, certainly at Easter, but also at Christmas... An ancestral sweet, without leavening, evolved from ancestors who celebrated Spring with the products - ricotta, milk, wheat, fruit, herbs - of an agro-pastoral civilization..."...hic bis pecudes gravidae, bis pomis utilis arbores" ( Bucolics) Personally, Scaturchio is linked to the "Ministerial" people I used to bring to the bank for end-of-year parties, to the "stock exchange" ladies who often, with patience and corporate spirit, forwarded my "orders".... We speak in the past tense because the COVID watershed and changing corporate logic have shaken the banking environment. Branch reductions, constant turnover, the requirement to use iPhones and various remote devices for many transactions have distanced the customer from the bank employee. The memory remains of that small gesture of complicity that spanned a short distance like a bridge. Where bridges are built in peace and destroyed in war...few remember it. The very table that brings diners together is a bridge between them... P.S. Having reached a venerable age, I myself find myself "banned" from ministerial people. To the urologist...! Tempora mutatur et nos mutamur in illis....

18/12/2025: Wonderful place, top-quality merchandise, and top-notch service! Definitely go!