A little slice of Italy in the heart of Salt Lake

They traded the Mediterranean Sea for a briny lake they can't swim in, and a culture renowned for its glorious cuisine for a place where the specialities are Jell-O salad and funeral potatoes.

Wineries are scarce, there are no famous museums, and it's tough to find a good cup of cappuccino. What's a homesick Italian stuck in Salt Lake City to do?

Enter Adriano Comollo. Last year, the 58-year-old professor from Turino, Italy, decided that something had to be done to bring a little more Italian spirit to Salt Lake City.

After convincing Tony Caputo to give him some space next to Caputo's deli in the Firestone Building on 300 West and 300 South, Adriano filled several bookcases with Italian books and magazines, tacked some maps and photos of the Mediterranean to the walls and opened the doors of the Italian Center of the West.

Finally, there is now a place for Italians (and those who simply wish they were) to speak their native language, watch Italian news on satellite and read the latest Italian best-sellers. Thanks to Adriano's persistence, there is now even a place to play bocce across the street in Pioneer Park.

But don't think of showing up simply to show off your athletic prowess.

"In Italy, you play bocce to have fun, not just to win," says Adriano over a Free Lunch of homemade lasagne from Caputo's. "The American way is very different. Everybody is so competitive. Any Italian can tell you there is more to life than winning."

Adriano is proof of that. He left a job teaching Italian studies at the University of Utah to become director of the Italian Center and hang out in Salt Lake City's own "Little Italy."

Already, he has hoisted an Italian flag outside Tony Caputo's deli. Now he's hoping to convince officials to put up a "Little Italy" sign and make improvements to promote the area as the "most international" part of the city.

"This section of town is so rich in culture — there really used to be a Little Italy here, and a neighborhood called Greektown, too," he says. "When the Salt Palace and the freeway went in, it cut everything in half. But now, it's slowly coming back."

A former professor at Brigham Young University who immigrated to the United States in 1985, Adriano lived in Utah County for eight years. "To be honest, I couldn't live there any longer," he says. "How can I say this? I needed a place with a little more culture."

So he moved to Salt Lake City — home to many of the state's 20,000 Italian-Americans.