On a recent location scout I was delighted to stumble upon Savoca, the village where they filmed the Sicilian scenes of
The Godfather. It was a very odd experience as I had, only two weeks previously, turned on my television in a French hotel room and found this exact scene being played out. Incredibly the bar is preserved virtually identically to as it was when the movie was filmed almost 40 years ago. Maurizio, our local production guide, assured me it would have even had the same wooden chairs and tables had the owner, Maria, not sadly passed away last summer. By all accounts she was a very engaging character who ran the bar with a passion until her last days, making her famous
granita lemoni everyday. Her nephew now runs the bar, and I suspect it is very similar still to how it was, save for the generic new rattan chairs and tourist t-shirts. A nicer touch is the video running in an ante-room of Maria describing her village and love of
la campagna. It is a lovely spot, quite apart from its Hollywood history, and I can vouch that the
granita is still
ottimo. Although, Maurizio disagrees.
The granita machine
The late Maria, in her bar
There are plenty of movie stills framed inside the bar
The bar today
The original tables were like these typical Sicilian ones here
