The History of Castelli
Our Story
For nearly seventy years, Castelli has held its place in Piassa with very little need for introduction. Its reputation was built slowly, through the family who opened it, the people who returned, and the city that grew around it.
The story begins in 1957, when Francesco and Rosa Castelli arrived from Tortona, a small town in Piedmont in northern Italy, and opened a dining room under their own name. The building had already lived two lives before theirs, first as an Armenian palazzo and later as the Casa del Fascio. After the war, it became home to a kitchen. Piassa was then the commercial heart of Addis Ababa, a district closely tied to the city’s changing social and cultural life. Over time, Piassa became inseparable from Castelli itself.
Francesco and Rosa cooked the food they knew. Pasta was rolled by hand on machines like those their own grandmothers had used. Ravioli was filled with ricotta and spinach. Tortellini alla tortolese and Venetian-style pasta e fagioli were prepared from memory. The recipes were not written down. They were learned through repetition, passed through the kitchen from one pair of hands to the next.
In the early years, many of the guests came from Addis Ababa’s Italian community, drawn to food they recognised. As Piassa changed, so did the dining room. Ethiopian families began returning more often. Some became regulars, then brought their children, and years later those children returned with families of their own. Familiar tables gathered new generations around them. Over the years, Castelli became closely woven into the life of Addis Ababa itself.
The kitchen evolved in its own way. Ethiopian produce, herbs and saffron entered recipes that remained distinctly Italian. Carletto, a member of the Castelli family, created the saffron spaghetti using Ethiopian saffron with a character of its own. Ethiopian cooks and staff also became central to preserving the restaurant’s traditions. Over decades, they learned the timings, ratios and unwritten habits behind the dishes, helping carry the family’s cooking forward with consistency.
Today, Tiziana Castelli, daughter of the founders, continues the family story. Pasta is still rolled by hand each morning. The wine list still crosses two countries, with Tortona and the Rift Valley finding their place in the same house. The walls have gathered their own record of the years too, through photographs and signatures left by statesmen, artists and travellers who found their way to Castelli’s doorway in Piassa.
The restaurant’s international reputation grew without changing the way the house carried itself. Castelli did not need to become louder to be noticed. It kept doing what it had always done, serving the food it knew, welcoming people back, and allowing its reputation to travel beyond Addis Ababa on its own.
Nearly seventy years on, the details that matter remain recognisable. The recipes. The hospitality. The address. Around them, the guests, the staff and the city have continued to change.
A table at Castelli now carries all of that history with it. Each evening adds another chapter.