Valvona and Crolla is Edinburgh's most celebrated Italian delicatessen and café, operating from the same premises in Elm Row since 1934. The front shop is a serious Italian food shop — Parmigiano-Reggiano in the wheel, a wine cellar with several hundred Italian labels, olive oils, pasta, cured meats, truffle products, the kind of stock that still surprises even regular visitors. The back café opens for breakfast and lunch and serves some of the best Italian food in Edinburgh.
The caffè dishes are straightforward and well-sourced: frittata, pasta, antipasto, Italian pastries with proper espresso. The queues on Saturday mornings are part of the experience; the shop is worth browsing on its own terms. It has supplied Edinburgh's Italian restaurants, households and catering trade for nearly a century, and the family still runs it.