The Italian Gob

When it comes to our GGTV interviews, we always like to keep it somewhere around five minutes. Preferably under.

With Fiore and Bruna down at that fine main street chipper, Pineto’s, the interview went on for 15 minutes and 33 seconds.

Then again, Fiore Vecchio and his beautiful daughter, Bruna, are Italian. And they do have one hell of a story to tell.

The seeds to this Greystones institution were actually sown just after the Second World War, when strangers Pietro and Bruna moved to Ireland, both travelling from the province of Frosinone in Italy’s Lazio region – the former from Casalattico, and the latter from Montattico, two tiny villages less than three miles apart.
Not long after landing in Ireland – Pietro in Dublin, Bruna in Arklow – these two Italian teenagers met, fell in love and married. Their son, Fiore, came along not too long afterwards.

Born Chippy

This is all back when Ireland began to fall under the spell of the great Italian chipper, and the Vecchio family soon established themselves as one of the finest. When son Fiore travelled back to Italy and met his future wife, Anna, soon after, the lure of Ireland drew him back – and yet another family-run chipper opened in Dublin soon after. When that Christchurch venture burned down, Fiore and Anna kept on working, and working, finally buying a property in Wicklow Town.

As that chipper thrived, and the family grew, Fiore spotted an opening when The Shopping Basket supermarket on Greystones’ main street shut down. In 1996, Pineto Classico opened up here, the family deciding to sell their Wicklow Town outlet a year later. Once they realised that Greystones is The Greatest Little Town In The World.

With that 20th anniversary of Pineto’s opening now upon us, and the annual Irish Traditional Italian Chipper Association’s National Fish & Chips Day landing on Wednesday 25th, we thought it would be a good time to swing down to this Greystones institution and get chippy with the great Fiore and his huggable, right-hand daughter Bruna…

Ever the gent, Fiore wants us to give a big shout-out to his wonderful staff, Elena, Conal and Inesa. Oh, and check out last year’s National Fish & Chips Day in Greystones here.