As far back as 1878, a confectioner in GAVIRATE, a small town on the VARESE LAKE, thought up and created with refined confectionery art, the little handmade pastries that would become known as “brutti e buoni” (ugly and good), made of egg whites, sweet almonds, hazel nuts, sugar and vanilla essence. Thanks to these delicacies Costantino Veniani became one of the best known confectioners, not only in Gavirate but in all the Varese, with the “brutti e buoni” representing a symbolic “recall” to this pleasant lakeside town.

In fact, legend has it that even Queen Elena, on her visits to Countess Leopardi in Ternate, used to pass through Gavirate to buy these special pastries, and that Giuseppe Verdi, while vacationing in Cuasso al Monte, would often go to Gavirate, beckoned by the famous “brutti e buoni”.

Round but irregularly shaped, crisp and with a characteristic almond and hazel nut flavour, they are wrapped in pairs, like sweets; not only are they still nowadays produced in Gavirate’s confectioneries in true artisan style, but they are copied even well beyond the local boundaries.