Giuseppe ‘Pino’ Camera (59) and Saskia Schreiner (60) transformed a famous village café into an Italian restaurant. The new dining spot in Anloo is opening on Friday.
With an elongated wooden bar, dozens of Italian wine bottles and paintings with cows on the wall, guests feel like they’re there La Fornaccia is a mix of Italian and Drenthe atmospheres.
The eye-catcher of the restaurant is a sixty-year-old, bright blue Vespa that stands in front of the bar. Less noticeable is a boiling stuffed rat, covered with a piece of glass under the kitchen floor. The scene is a nod to Ratatouille and refers to a found remains of the renovation – a dead rat.
Anyone who enters the building in the heart of the village will not recognize much of the old, illustrious village café Popken-Hollander that used to be there. For more than 26 years, former owner Jan Pieter Sikkema and his wife Dita ran the pub that took you years back in time.
In 2021, Sikkema decided to put the property up for sale due to his age and the death of his wife. Unfortunately, he will no longer experience the results of the renovation. Last week, a week before the opening, he died unexpectedly.
Many did not dare to renovate the dated pub. The property was for sale for a year and a half before Giuseppe Camera became the new owner in 2022.
Despite a major, heavy renovation that took eight months, Camera and girlfriend Saskia Schreiner are anything but exhausted. “Tired? No. We both exercise and don’t smoke. We also don’t drink much. If you work in the catering industry, you can’t keep it up,” says Camera.
Forty years of experience
He should know, because with about forty years of experience, Camera is a real catering man. The Italian was born in Rome, where he attended hotel school.
When he came to the Netherlands, he got a job as a pizza chef at Contini in Groningen, the first pizzeria in the Northern Netherlands. “I was there eating pizza when the owner came up to me. He asked if I was Italian and if I knew how to make pizza. When I answered yes, I was hired immediately. Without him ever seeing me work.”
Nine years later he started his own restaurant, pizzeria Il Lago, near the Hoornsemeer in Groningen. A large company with more than 300 tables and a lot of staff. After 28 years at the helm, he decided it had been good. Son Daniel will take over the shop from December.
“It was extremely busy. Every evening I went home tired. I noticed that I didn’t like it as much anymore. So I no longer wanted that,” Camera reflects.
Not your average Italian restaurant
And so the catering couple plans to take things a bit easier now. Unlike Il Lago, Anloo has room for about 36 people. Not your average Italian restaurant, but small-scale and with a little more quality, is what Camera and Schreiner are going for. On four days, from Thursday to Sunday, people can have a bite to eat there.
“It’s not the more people who come in, the better,” he explains. “We don’t do it for the money, but for the passion. And for fun. Otherwise you won’t last.”
The old kitchen
The name La Fornaccia, meaning ‘the old cuisine’ refers to the classic dishes served. Not on an endlessly long menu, but with a choice of a few recognizable pastas, pizzas and desserts.
No takeaway or delivery either, Camera promises. “It’s terrible,” he says, about delivering food on a scooter. “Then the pizza is on one side of the box at the end of the journey.”
A million pizzas
The intention is that Camera and Schreiner will first work in the kitchen themselves. Until a permanent chef is found. The pizza oven becomes the Italian’s permanent spot. “I’m a good pizza maker,” he says proudly. “I have baked more than a million copies in my life,” he estimates.
The couple has many plans for the future. In addition to dinner, lunch will eventually be added on weekends. In the spring there will be more space on the two terraces in front and behind the building. There will soon be four studios on the top floor, where guests can spend the night. And in addition to parties and weddings, the couple also wants to offer space for associations from the village to meet there.
And just like many other catering establishments, Camera and Schreiner are also looking for staff. This can also be seen from the large, yellow poster that now adorns the window. The counter currently stands at fifteen employees, mainly young people from Anloo and the adjacent village of Annen. The couple has also been living in the latter place for a year. Schreiner runs her own bed & breakfast there.
‘Soon I’ll be there alone’
They will welcome their first guests next Friday. And despite the years of experience, Camera still finds it exciting.
“Not because of the possible reactions, mind you. There is always a negative one. That’s part of it,” he says. “But I am especially nervous about my work in the kitchen. I’m used to working with eight people. But soon I will be there alone.”
Yet they have complete confidence in it. It is already raining reservations for the first few weeks. “The environment is waiting eagerly. People are curious and want to come and have a look,” says Schreiner. “So we won’t have anyone sitting here any time soon.”