In Savoca, a small village near Taormina, Bar Vitelli is one of the most famous film locations in the world, which takes us straight to the heart of Sicily in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.
Savoca is one of the many villages in the Sicilian hinterland suspended in time and space. When you go up the suggestive streets of the hills that lead to the center of the small town in the province of Messina, almost without meeting a living soul, you could never imagine what awaits you once you arrive in Piazza Fossia, in the “presence” of the Bar Vitelli.
Fans from all over the world wait, in fact, in an almost religious wait, to sit under the legendary “Itala Pilsen” sign, right there where Al Pacino, the protagonist of Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Godfather, sat in 1971.
Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgement.
(Don Vito Corleone)
Here, in fact, one of the most famous scenes in the history of cinema was filmed, the one in which Mike Corleone goes to this bar, fictionally located in the center of Corleone, to ask the owner to marry his daughter Apollonia, who he will do later on in the church of Santa Lucia, also in Savoca.
To tell the truth, Bar Vitelli was famous long before the film was shot there for its lemon granita with “zuccarate”, typical local biscuits, and for the owner, the lively Maria D’Arrigo, better known as “’a signurina Maria”.
The Bar is located on the ground floor of Palazzo Trimarchi, a noble building built between the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century by the wealthy Trimarchi family as their residence. During the second half of the twentieth century, uninhabited by the owners, the first floor was also home to a middle school, while since 1963 the bar has been managed by the D’Arrigo family and today by its descendants, the Motta family.
In addition to ordering granita, today at Bar Vitelli you can also stay in the suites with swimming pools built on the upper floors, while inside a small museum of memorabilia linked to the cult of The Godfather has been set up.
Freely based on the novel of the same name by Mario Puzo published in the United States in 1969, who wrote the screenplay together with director Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather is a 1972 film masterfully interpreted by various cinema legends, such as Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, and Diane Keaton, with the unforgettable soundtrack by Nino Rota.
Set in New York between the end of the 40s and the beginning of the 50s, the premiere took place in the United States on March 15, 1972, with the title The Godfather. A cult film that grossed a record total of over 135 million dollars in America, as well as being awarded three Oscars and following up with two sequels, The Godfather – Part II (1974) and The Godfather – Part III (1990) ).
50 years have passed since Marlon Brando uttered one of the most famous phrases in cinema “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse”, but the Bar Vitelli, with its 600 years of history, is still there, perfectly preserved as then, and reminds us of all the power of great cinema, as well as the wonder of rural Sicily.
Try to visit it away from busy days and times, sit calmly, put on the music from Nino Rota’s The Godfather and let the emotion do the rest.
The Secret
Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo initially thought of Corleone in the province of Palermo for the filming but the town, in 1971, was too modern and did not meet the requirements of a Sicilian town as it should have been in the post-war 1940s. Once in Sicily, the director and crew stayed in a hotel in Taormina and, on that occasion, came into contact with the Baron of Floristella Gianni Pennisi, an internationally established painter. He suggested Savoca and the small bar near the Town Hall which, after an initial inspection, was also very popular with Francis Ford Coppola who renamed it, for script reasons, Bar Vitelli.
Useful Info
Bar Vitelli
Piazza Fossia 7
98038 Savoca, Messina
Tel. +39 334 9227227
For further info: VisitME Comune di Messina
