Who was Piccolo Cesare?
Cesare Esposito was born in 1921 in Bagnara Calabra, a fishing village tucked between the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Aspromonte mountains. He was five-foot-two on his tallest day — short enough that the village women took to calling him piccolo Cesare, "little Caesar," the same way they'd called his father before him.
At seventeen, Cesare apprenticed at the village bakery. He rolled focaccia before dawn, learned to coax a wood-fired oven into producing the perfect crust, and memorized his mother Rosaria's recipe for pasta al forno — the Sunday lasagna that later became our most-ordered tray.
In 1972, Cesare emigrated to Canada with his wife Rosaria and their three children, settling in Mississauga's Clarkson neighbourhood. He worked the graveyard shift at a commercial bakery for seventeen years. His grandson Marco — our founder — spent every school holiday in Nonno's kitchen.
