Guidi Marcello Ltd.
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This sign may not look like much, hidden off a one-way street close to the 10 Freeway in an industrial neighborhood of Santa Monica. But walk inside the bare-bones storefront of Guidi Marcello and you’ll find a glorious world of food. I’d never been there until last week, after three separate people in a 24-hour period (two of them executive chefs) told me that’s where they got their vin cotto, their Italian grain, their pappardelle. So I drew a map on the back of my hand and finally found the place. Inside I also found Gessica Guidi, granddaughter of the company’s late founder, Marcello Guidi (that’s an inversion, not a typo), handing out samples and chatting with customers. (Marcello Guidi began the company, but it was his son Marco, Gessica’s father, who in 1981 opened the Santa Monica store.) A Berkel slicer (they sell them) stood inside an office door. Customers congregated to sample five varieties of vin cotto -- a syrup made from wine must that’s aged in oak barrels. The small store, which mostly does wholesale business, was filled with shelves stocking Spinosi pasta, cans of San Marzano tomatoes, 1-kilo jars of La Favorita salted capers, refrigerated cases filled with guanciale and salame cresponde and fresh Gioia burrata. Inside a frozen case I found bags of fresh porcini and veal agnolotti.
And then, on the way out, next to a rack of a dozen or so kinds of olives -- Castelvetranos, Baresane black olives from Puglia -- I spied a wall lined with these beautiful square nesting jars filled with Moreno Cedroni’s jams and mustards. Cedroni is the chef at the Michelin two-star Madonnina del Pescatore in Marzocca di Senigallia, Italy; Guidi Marcello is the L.A. distributor for the Italian chef’s line, which will soon include sauces.
I won’t need to write the directions on my hand anymore; after Wednesday’s visit, Guidi’s has been permanently imprinted in my memory. Along with the taste of a 50-year-old chestnut balsamic vinegar that Gessica had us sample after the vin cotto.
Guidi Marcello, 1649 10th St., Santa Monica, (310) 452-6277. Open 9:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday.
-- Amy Scattergood
Photos by Amy Scattergood
