www.ferrinirestauri.it FMI Representative The best thing about “Butega ad Grazien”? The tagliatelle with ragù homemade by his grandmother… Yes, but don’t expect to go there and find them ready on the table, it’s just a way of saying that things there are genuine and everything in that Butega has a story to tell… Stories that maybe are hidden under the dust and neglect of years, stories forgotten in barns or cellars, stories of which pieces have been lost and that someone then thinks of selling to make some money… Graziano, on the other hand, loves to collect these stories to then remove the dust, eliminate the rust and write new ones… It’s the same with every engine… (around here they call motorcycles that). Every engine has something worthwhile and a story to rediscover… An example? Let him tell you about the time he chased the rag and bone man's Ape on his scooter to get an old Guzzi that was going straight to the junkyard: he convinced him to dump it in the middle of the road, hid it in a bush and then came back to get it with the car and it barely fit in the trunk... Stories like that, like that of his first new car, a Ford Sierra bought in cash and paid 18 million five hundred thousand lire only to see it destroyed less than 70 meters outside the dealership... That car, now ready to be thrown away, he exchanged for a Ford Scorpio. Three of them must have had that car: when you set off even the old men with women's bikes and shopping bags would overtake you, but Grazien managed to find poetry even in that artichoke with wheels, the best part - he says - was the back seat and he didn't just use it to sit on... Got it? Scorpio was many years before Butega… Graziano was already tinkering with engines and his workshop, 4 by 5 meters, no more; it was small, but tidy and nothing was missing. He restored vintage motorcycles from the 20s to the 50s. He was a hobbyist – that's what you call those who don't do it for a living – but his was a game that he dreamed of one day turning into a profession. Now within these 4 walls the dream is coming true: half museum, half workshop, fruit crates hung up like a bookcase on top (because nothing gets thrown away…) and on the shelves the hen with the words “silence is brooding” written on it, pieces scattered here and there, old stuff, junk, tools all perfectly aligned and on the benches even a few motorcycles from the 70s… Stuff a little more modern for his standards. I remember that time he started up the 6-cylinder Honda: it struggled a bit to start, then the music started and it sounded like a jet, true poetry! If you ask him: “Grazien, restore a Ducati Elite?” He answers: “It’s like open heart surgery…”. This is called doing things and putting passion into them… So you find Grazien wandering around the trade shows with a pair of shock absorbers he just bought, his eyes shining and you don’t have to ask… You already know they’re from an Elite, but how did he find them?!? This is how it works: a careful eye that has learned to peer under the rust, see beyond the dust of the years… Then to work in Butega where those old motorized objects slowly come back to life as his slogan explains: “From sandblasting to threading…”. In a corner of the workshop there’s an old wooden radio, one of those that sit on the floor with the cabinet. Open the door and the turntable light comes on, you press the button and when the valves heat up the notes start coming out. The music of a single-cylinder rod and rocker arm and that of an old cassette radio often sound alike because they come from distant, forgotten times… You just have to know how to wait, it takes time, as it took the hobbyist to become a restorer, as it takes to complete a difficult restoration… As for La Butega: a dream come true. Graziano Ferrini