The name
“Gran Fausto” comes from the cyclist Fausto Coppi. Whoever opened the place chose to name it after him, in an Italy where cycling was still everyone's sport.
The name is a tribute to Fausto Coppi, il Campionissimo. The restaurant opened on the port of Portese in the early 1960s and has changed neither its place nor its family since.
The port
Portese is a hamlet of San Felice del Benaco, on the Brescia shore. The restaurant looks directly onto the little harbour, at the point where the Gulf of Salò opens towards the Isola del Garda.
Sixty years on
The lake, the tourism and people's habits have all changed, but Gran Fausto has remained a family restaurant. The people who work here are the same people who worked here, or their children.
“The same harbour, the same family, since the early 1960s.”
The family
Still the same hands
Gran Fausto has never been sold on to a chain or a group. A family opened it, and a family still runs it.
It is a difference you can feel: in who greets you at the door, in who cooks, and in the fact that things change slowly here, and only when they need to.