Robert Giardino sticks to one(ish) product and it works. His focaccia, made with a mix of “00” or “0” flour, Durum Wheat flour, and potatoes, likely rivals every at-home COVID-inspired recipe you’ve tried. You’ll just have to stop by his Fort Langley shop and see.
There’s no fuss at La Focacceria. Giardino’s store is strictly retail, offering fresh focaccia options, Italian sweets (cannolis are the biggest hit) and a freezer full of frozen flatbreads with flavours of olive, garlic, roasted bell pepper, and onion. Often in the freezer rotation are pizza doughs, parbaked baguettes, and dinner rolls. And thanks to the exclusive use of Italian flour, Giardino’s products are safe for most gluten-intolerant people.
It’s a small but mighty operation. Nearly everything produced at the shop is made by hand, by Giardino. Somehow keeping up with a growing demand, Giardino puts the top quality of his products over social media glitz. His customers do the advertising, and their testimonials are glowing.
Learn more about Robert Giardino and La Focacceria in our interview below.
I’d love to know when you opened and why.
We opened to the public on December 11, 2019. We opened then for a variety of reasons. One, nobody had any idea COVID was around the corner. And, I had been searching for almost 10 years for a location and an opportunity to get back into business for myself. In August of that year, there was an event that happened in my life that forced me out of my comfort zone. I decided I had to go for this, come hell or high water.
What were your early concepts?
Originally, I was looking to open a food service operation, and in particular, a sandwich shop.
Very similar to a famous one in Florence called All’Antico Vinaio. Prior to COVID, real estate prices were out of sight.
I was looking for a smaller community: Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast, Ladner, Steveston – nothing was available in a reasonable price area. When taking a break from it all, I came to Fort Langley in August and saw huge potential and started researching and very shortly a location became available. [The previous tenant’s] lease was expiring at the end of 2019, and the landlord’s stipulation was that the [space] had to remain a bakery. So we made a big pivot and turned the sandwich shop concept into a bakery, specializing in focaccia.
It turned out to be a good thing. We discovered in the ensuing couple of years that food service operations suffered greatly. And ironically, focaccia was on everyone’s mind. They were all madly scrambling to make it at home and search for recipes. And discovering, to their chagrin, that they weren’t so good at making focaccia at home. So [customers] gave us a try and really loved what we do.
Is La Focacceria a sit down style cafe? Or is it purely retail?
We are strictly a retail bakery.
I would say about 60 percent of my clientele come to me because I use Italian flour exclusively for everything. Currently, the furthest we go into fancy pastries is our cannoli, which we’re getting quite a reputation for.
I would love to know a little bit more about your products and in that vein, the core values of your business.
We are grassroots. My motto is: innovate, educate, satiate.
First and foremost, we’re not trying to sell fancy high-end Instagram-worthy types of products. We are grassroots, selling to a diversified demographic and clientele who are looking for quality first. As I said, the majority of our clients come to us specifically because we use Italian flour, and a very high percentage of those people are coming to us because they are gluten intolerant.
With my use of Italian flour and slow overnight fermentation, we can accommodate a good 98 to 99 per cent of all the gluten-intolerant individuals out there.
Why is Italian flour more friendly for people with gluten sensitivity?
European grains are less hybridized than North American grains. While there are some very good North American grains, many of them have been hybridized for different motivations– climate change, ease of harvesting, water tolerance, and drought tolerance.
What inspired you to start this business and share your love of focaccia?
I was destined to have a love of food.
I was blessed with not just a community and extended family, but a mother who is very good at cooking. My father is originally from the Abruzzo region, my mother is originally from the Calabria region [in Italy]. Anyone who grows up in any ethnic household is blessed with wonderful food. And so that’s where it all began. I’m a naturally curious person, and wanted to get involved in things that were of interest to me. At the age of 17, I had the opportunity to live and study in Italy, going to hotel school, studying hospitality.
During those three years, I got exposed to quite a lot of wonderful, wonderful things. And that’s spawned a lifelong interest in and love of all things Italian and culinary, and of course, [global] cuisine.
As a maker, what do you hope that people take away from your products in their experience?
I’m in the autumn of my life, and we can’t be everything to everyone. [With La Focacceria], I settled on sticking with Italian. We do modern twists sometimes and have to acknowledge that Italy itself is an amalgamation of many cultures and cuisines. So one little anecdote I like to tell people is that the tomato is synonymous with Italy and Italians, but it took 150 years or so before they would accept the tomato.
And what do I hope people take away? Well, certainly appreciating the product itself and for what it is but hopefully also understanding what goes into making an artisanal product.
There’s a lot of blood, sweat and tears. There’s a lot of love and anxiety. People ask all the time, “which is the most popular item?” And I say that’s the wrong question. The question you should be asking yourself, is what makes you tick? All of [my products] are my babies.
What has the community reception been in Langley?
Very, very warm and welcoming. A tremendous reception. While we do have a local base here in Fort Langley, we get people from all over the Lower Mainland coming in and making that drive specifically to load up.
What are you most proud of in your bakery and your business?
I’m very proud of the fact that we can provide bread to people who hadn’t been able to eat bread in years before discovering us. I’m very proud of the fact that we’re recognized by native Italians, who either live here now or are visiting and that we have had the thumbs up nod from the Italian Chamber of Commerce as well and that they consider our product to be fairly authentic. We’re not a high-end expensive place. It’s about providing the value of quality and price, and that’s what we’re striving to do.
La Focacceria is open Thursday to Sunday
Unit 6 – 9110 Glover Road
Langley, BC
Article by: Brittany Tiplady
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity
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