The Osteria da Marino in Trieste turns 100: « So its story tells that of the city »

« There is no triestino that has not entered here at least once. » « Here » is theOsteria da Marinohidden in a narrow and dark viuzza in the ghetto of Triestebehind the monumental Piazza Unità. Defining her hidden, in truth, is an understatement because in the city they all know her and as Fiero says one of the two managers, the 39 -year -old of Serbian origin Ivan Glavinic(the other is Niels Guermonprez: 29 years old, born in France and raised first in Slovenia and then in Trieste) it is difficult if not impossible to find someone who has not come to us at least once.

On the other hand, it is now part of the history of Tergestina: In fact, on 28 May he celebrates the hundredth year from opening. «The place had already existed before – Glavinic points out – but that day the official license was released. It was 1925 and was recorded as First Jewish café Of the city, without even a name: it was cataloged simply as « individual company by Samuele Sesana », owner of the time « .

Closing due to fascist racial laws

Decade after decade, the restaurant lived all the reversals of the city’s history. In 1940, due to the fascist racial laws, Sesana was forced to close it. He will reopen a handful of years later, at the end of the war and in a period, in some ways, no less difficult. While At the turn of 1946 and 1947 Marino Furlan opens the placegiving him his name and transforming him into the tavern, the fate of Trieste decides: stay in Italy or end up in the then Yugoslavia?

The reopening and the TLT

The Paris Treaty of 10 February 1947 will temporarily opt for a third solution: to create the free territory of Trieste (TLT) divided into an area a area administered by the allies and in an area B managed by Yugoslavia. Trieste is assigned to the first: Until 1954, when the city officially returned Italian, it is administered by the Americans. In the streets of the city, allies and spies titine crossto hand forward and manage a place it takes energy and courage. Marino has, and how. And not only those: « It was the host just as you imagine it: tall, well placed, always with the joke ready. He loved to eat, drink and stay in company and all those who knew him maintained good memories. So much so that even today the old customers, between a glass of wine and a tartina, tell me anecdotes of the time », explains Glavinic.

The first TV and the Masonic club

In the two rooms with a barrel vault in via del Ponte 5 the history of the city passed. Here came one of the first televisionsfor example: it was 1957 and the people in the area met by Marino to look at it. It was also the years of the economic boom but at the tavern it was still used « the book of the Puf » (that is, of the debt, in Trieste dialect) where the drinks were marked that the customers then welded at the end of the month. In the 1980s in a corner table it was even founded a Masonic circle. The tavern becomes a reference point for the students of the University local and, thanks to the penultimate manager who was also president of the Rugby company, Meeting of rugby players.

Memories of all kinds remain of this heterogeneous clientele: a brass plaque that recalls the foundation of the Masonic club, rugby balls, flags, shirts, photographs and, for a certain period, also a canoe brought by some students and hanging on the wall. Not to mention the cigar butts smoked by famous people. Which? It will never be known, because there are no plates with the names marked or souvenir photos of the VIPs hanging on the wall.

Famous customers

Yet there have been and they still come several. Iron Maiden, Guns’n’Roses, the porn star Sasha Gray to mention some of the best known. Somewhere there is a list with all the names but Glavinic is keen to emphasize that it is and will remain the only « test » of their passage: « For us they are customers like everyone else And when no one come, not even we managers, it changes them asking for photos or autographs. They come here to relax and feel good and we want to respect this desire: we want them to go away keeping a good memory ».

« Stolen by Marino »

Who knows if, like generations of patrons, Marino will also retain something more tangible. The place is small, the customers many and the objects scattered here and there impossible to check: It often happens that, in the crowd, something disappears. The managers have always sketched and indeed, with irony Triestine, at a certain point they began to distribute some Plastic holder with the writing « stolen from the Osteria da Marino ». It worked: « We had 10 thousand of them, about 300 remain in the warehouse, » Ride Glavinic.

Which does not intend to increase controls nor change, in any way, the tradition that the tavern has carried out in its hundred years. You eat and still drink at a good price (about 3.50 euros for a glass of local wine, 2.50 for a tartina with local products), you chat and pull late (the room closes at 2). On some evenings, when the artists who perform in the nearby theaters pass, they make music: whoever wants to piano who is in a corner of the room and sometimes also appears a guitar.

Glavinic and his Rakija

If the evening is of the good ones, Glavinic pulls his special bottle of Rakija out of under the counterthe plum liqueur that is produced in its country of origin, and makes it turn between the tables. Born and raised in Serbia, he arrived in Trieste at 22 to study and, like many university students, he started attending the tavern. To which he was linked for years, as an loyal customer, even when he left his studies to work in catering.

When, a few years ago, the last owner proposed to him to pass him the witness took a break to think about it and then, In December 2021, he found the activity To which the partner Guermonprez has also been added, like him’s former customs of Marino. Not without fear: « Carrying out the tradition of such a place and keeping it alive is difficult». But after four years, and on the eve of the cents anniversary, the balance is positive. The future goal of Glavinic and Guermonprez? Make sure that the statement with which we started this article, « there is no triestino that has not entered here at least once », continues to be true.