The purpose of my very first trip to Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giulia region was to meet with the owner of the Ledragomma GymnastikBall company, in order to develop some sort of tie-in with my soon-to-be-published book Balance on the Ball: Exercises Inspired by the Teachings of Joseph Pilates. When the owner, Steno Dondè, learned of my interest in cooking, he invited me to dinner later that week, so that he could introduce me to some traditional Friulian dishes. The restaurant he picked was one of Udine’s oldest, Osteria Al Vecchio Stallo. Occupying a 17th-century building that was originally a horse stable, the osteria has been serving food for over a hundred years.
It was that meal that sparked my obsession with Friulian cuisine, and not long after returning home, I started working on my book Flavors of Friuli: A Culinary Journey through Northeastern Italy. During my subsequent research trips, I spent a great deal of time in Udine, as its location in central Friuli made an ideal base for day trips. While I ate at many other restaurants in that city, Al Vecchio Stallo was the one I frequented most often.
The outside of the restaurant was gray and nondescript, peeling concrete buried under centuries of dirt. Although the building has been repainted since I was last there over a decade ago, I wanted to recreate the look of weathered concrete for my dollhouse.
It doesn’t show in the above picture, but the door and window frames are made of dark wood. I used a dark walnut stain for these elements.
Then, I outlined the walls in medium gray paint, so as to keep the edges as clean as possible. For the stucco, I mixed the same paint with some mortar mix. Instead of pouncing the stucco on with a sponge like I did on my gelateria shop, I painted the stucco on with a brush so that I could see the brushstrokes. I did the same with two darker shades of gray.
The door on the actual building is framed by dirty off-white stone, so I painted the trim a lighter shade of gray for contrast.
Since the trim looked too pristine, I then painted it with a wash of water mixed with dark brown and black acrylic paint. This helped give it an aged look to match the stucco. (It doesn’t show very well in the photos, but it does look much more subdued now.)
For the side and back walls, I didn’t bother with the stucco effect. I just painted them a medium gray, then used paper towels to pounce on the two darker shades of gray. The trim is the same light gray as on the facade.
