A Slice of History: Pizzeria La Tana
Small businesses are the heart and soul of a community. Here are several examples of Vasto’s family-owned businesses.

In the 1950’s, the traumas of the Second World War, were still fresh in the memory of every Abruzzese. Much of the Abruzzo coast was recovering from the intense bombing that led to the near total destruction of the towns of Pescara and Ortona, the brutal occupation of the Maiella villages and the Nazi massacre of civilians in the village of Pietransieri. Fortunately, Vasto was not bombed, and its historic center was undamaged. But after the war, unemployment was high and many of the town’s inhabitants emigrated to Australia or the Americas, in search of a better life.

A friend gave me a brief description of how life was, as she remembers it when she was a child. “Centro Storico” the Old Town wasn’t the scenic tourist area that it is today. It was still quite poor,” she said. “The apartments were small and lacked modern conveniences. We lived opposite the Santa Chiara market, and in the mornings, I watched the farmers bring in their produce on the backs of donkeys, and the fishermen unload the day’s catch to sell in the different stalls. People scraped by, and on the hillsides beyond the wall of the Loggia Amblingh, where there are now many luxurious homes, there was a patchwork of small kitchen gardens “orto” that ran down to the sea, where the residents of the town grew vegetables to help feed their families. Fishermen on the way up to the market from the beach, would stop and trade fish for whatever was available from the small gardens.

Nineteen sixty-eight was the year Francesco Tana brought pizza to Vasto’s Centro Storico. At the time, he was unemployed and had a pressing need to earn a living that would enable him to support his large family. Necessity is the mother of invention, and that struggle and his responsibility, gave birth to Vasto’s first pizzeria.

Francesco Tana chose an unused wine cellar opposite Pallazzo D’Avalos and its garden for his new business. He learned the craft of fermenting and kneading pizza dough from a friend who was a baker. Another friend helped him with the necessary furnishings. There were a few shops that sold pizza by the slice in Vasto. Pizza was street food, or literally the fast food of the times, but the Pizzeria La Tana would be the first where its patrons could sit and be served in an ordinary restaurant. 

In the nineteen-fifties, many Vastese migrated to the North of Italy, and to the Americas and Australia, primarily driven by economic hardship and unemployment, but by nineteen sixties, there had begun an economic expansion in the region. As the economy of Vasto and the surrounding area improved, people began to leave their homes to enjoy an affordable evening at a restaurant. It is said, that for an Italian, Mama’s and Nonna’s cooking is always the golden standard, but Pizza was one dish that couldn’t be made at home. To make pizza as it should be, you need a special oven, either wood-fired, or electric to produce the high temperatures that are required for baking.

Once isolated by the rugged landscape of the Apennines, Vasto became more accessible as a result of a new motorway built across and under its peaks. As the decades of the sixties and seventies passed, Vasto, with its rustic charm, ancient ruins, and coastal beauty, began to attract tourists that brought needed business to local restaurants. Through the years, as the city prospered and grew, there would be many pizzerias, trattorias, and restaurants that would come and go, but La Tana remains.

The years pass

The central point of Vasto’s old town, Piazza Lucio Pudente, surrounded by centuries old buildings, is near, but at the same time feels centuries away from the buzz of traffic on Vasto’s main street Via Garibaldi. The bells from Chiesa San Giuseppe, a reminder of the neighborhood’s thousand-year history, ring every hour, marking the passing of time, and punctuating the chatter of the steady stream of tourists and residents on their way to dinner, or to watch the night fall over the Adriatic. 

Walk across the piazza, past the intricately patterned iron gates of the Giardini D’Avalos and go down the steps that lead to the cellar where Francesco Tana started his pizzeria. He passed away many years ago, but in the restaurant’s kitchen, you’ll find his two sons Peppino and Enzo, who have been baking pizza since they were in their teens, continuing a family business that echoes a past that is worth preserving.