Plutocrats Want to Turn Your Sweet Tooth Into Cash
Agnelli scion hopes to strike gold in chocolate (and jellied fruits).
This entrance of the pasticceria Cova in Via Montenapoleone in Milan, the day after it was announced that LVMH bought a majority stake in 2013.
Photographer: GIUSEPPE CACACE/AFPAlong a cobbled street in Turin, the whitewashed front beneath a half-century old sign saying “Cioccolataio” may look like a scene out of a Truffaut film. But it’s actually just another plutocrat’s trophy. Ferrari NV chairman and Agnelli scion John Elkann acquired a stake in Peyrano, an artisan chocolate maker and retailer founded in 1915, out of liquidation just before Covid-19 hit. He’s been showing it off to his rich friends ever since.
Mark Zuckerberg (when he’s not working out) has been there; so has Patrick Collison of Stripe Inc. Elon Musk received his own specially designed box of chocolates in an aluminum case to take on space trips. The Prada SpA clan has collaborated with Elkann on a co-branded Marchesi Peyrano panettone, combining the doughy sponge cake from Prada’s Milanese pastry shop with Peyrano’s Gianduja chocolate drops.