Majani Chocolates

In 1911, Fiat wanted a chocolate to give customers buying its new Tipo 4 luxury car. Bologna’s Majani created Cremino Fiat, with four alternating layers of hazelnut and almond cream to echo the car’s name. More than a century later, Majani says the recipe remains unchanged.

The chocolate maker’s story began in 1796, in a small “Laboratorio di Cose Dolci” – “Laboratory of Sweet Things” – near Bologna’s Piazza Maggiore. Chocolate was generally something you drank, but in 1832 Majani created Scorza, which it describes as Italy’s first solid chocolate. Its name means “bark”: thin chocolate rolled onto itself gave it a wrinkled, irregular appearance resembling oak bark. The original name, design and graphics have all survived.