Our Culture
Caring for a heritage passed down through time and preserved by our artisans. A savoir-faire that respects the rhythms of nature, enhancing seasonal flowers and fruit through slow, deliberate gestures.
The Gesture of Our Artisans
Our creations are handmade, expressing a culture that continues to evolve without losing sight of its roots.
We believe that time is an essential ingredient: we honour the long processes of recipes passed down through generations, preserving their value, authenticity and uniqueness.
The Botteghe, the Heart of Our Factory
The Chocolate Bottega
Our chocolate takes shape through artisan processes that combine skilled hands with recipes handed down over time.
Production still relies on historic machinery that continues to work at the pace required by the processes of the past.
The 1863 De Batiste granite mixer and the Melzi longitudinal granite conche slowly refine the cocoa mass, enhancing its texture and aromas without altering its identity. This process gives rise to our dark and milk chocolate, made into bars, pralines and artisan chocolates.
Alongside our conched chocolate, we continue to make the rare Santé chocolate, made exclusively with cocoa and sugar to the 19th-century recipe, a precious testament to the origins of the chocolate-maker's art.
The Confetti Bottega
“La dragée est la partie la plus difficile des travaux du confiseur”, wrote Barbier Duval in L'Art du Confiseur Moderne (Paris, 1879). Sugar-coating has always been considered one of the most complex processes in confectionery, as it requires experience, sensitivity and slow processing times.
For centuries it was carried out in the branlante, the traditional hand-operated pan that allowed the confectioner to control every stage of the process precisely. From the mid-19th century, mechanical copper pans made the work easier, but even today the quality of a sugared almond depends on the experience of its maker and the care devoted to every single step.
Sugar-coating is done in small batches, using only pure sugar, with no added starch. The centres are placed in traditional rotating copper pans, kept in constant motion and heated over a live flame. The sugar syrup is added gradually: with a ladle, for a smooth finish, or in a thin stream through a small funnel called a lavesino, to create the characteristic slightly crinkled finish.
The Fruit and Flower Bottega
Candying is a slow, patient, artisan craft that requires different timings and techniques for each fruit. Following the old Genoese tradition of fine candying, the fruit is worked whole: each piece is pierced by hand to allow its water to escape naturally and the sugar to penetrate the flesh slowly.
After careful selection, the fruit is immersed in a sugar syrup whose concentration is gradually increased over about fifteen days. Through the slow process of osmosis, the water is
gradually replaced by sugar, preserving the structure of the fruit and its fragrance, texture and flavour.
Only when it is ready to be enjoyed is the candied fruit glazed: a very thin sugar coating that protects its natural softness and keeps it moist.
The Fondant Bottega
This shop has its roots in the old confectionery art described by La Varenne in 1667 in “Le parfait confiturier”, the first treatise devoted to the transformation of sugar and its delicate stages of cooking.
Here the artisans' creativity meets sugar, turning it into shapes, colours and flavours inspired by nature.
These creations are preserved through the refined technique of sugar-polishing, an old process that gives the sugar its sparkle and allows it to keep naturally.
The Pastry Bottega
Once known as “Four”, this Bottega is where the celebrated “Romanengo Dolci” were born: the confettiere’s creations, distinguished from fresh pastry by the absence of flour, butter and eggs.
Here, ingredients from the other botteghe—such as chocolate and candied fruit—meet raw almond paste or fondant, giving rise to creations of unique balance and refinement. The process remains entirely manual to this day: the artisan’s precise gesture shapes each creation, giving it a distinctive form and aesthetic.
The few machines used here are dedicated to preparing the mixtures and bear witness to a long artisanal history: a nineteenth-century granite-roll refiner, a 1940s nougat machine and a cream cooker.
The Packaging Bottega
Packaging is an essential part of the Romanengo identity, encapsulating a true ritual of craftsmanship.
Crafted in wood by artisans from Ruta di Camogli or in paper—at times enriched with velvet trims—the boxes draw upon the shapes and details of our history.
The most iconic is the rectangular box, reminiscent of the wooden crates used to hold freshly picked fruit before it was transformed into candied fruit.
Blue paper, natural twine, and lead pencil
The blue paper of our packaging recalls the historic “sugar paper”, once used to wrap sugar loaves. The white string, meanwhile, ties a pencil in homage to the old way of carrying parcels before modern bags arrived, when a simple loop of string was all you needed to take them with you.
THE EXPERIENCE CONTINUES
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WORKSHOPS
Explore the WorkshopsPlaces where tradition continues to live on every day, welcoming those who wish to discover a heritage of flavors, aromas, and gestures preserved for generations. Every detail expresses Romanengo's identity and a culture of excellence that has been handed down over time.
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HISTORY
Explore the historyA story that began in 1780, spanning wars, epidemics, and the most prosperous years of the Republic of Genoa. Generation after generation, the Romanengo family has passionately preserved and passed down their art, becoming a benchmark for the artisanal production of confetti, candied fruits, and other confectionery excellences that still tell the story of Genoese tradition today.
