Antonio Mattei has been baking Biscotti di Prato since 1858
The Biscottificio Antonio Mattei in Prato is the oldest cookie bakery still operating in Tuscany. Since September 29, 1858, they have been crafting Biscotti di Prato from just five ingredients, without butter or yeast. To this day, they are still wrapped by hand in blue paper and tied with a string.
Antonio Mattei stands for a single pastry and its consistent repetition: the Cantuccini from Prato, baked in the same bakery in the town center since 1858. The building at Via Ricasoli 20–22 is still known by the locals in Prato as the "Mattonella," and if you are carrying a blue bag under your arm, there is nothing left to explain in this city.
We carry the Cantuccini La Mattonella in two sizes. That is all that is needed, because for over 160 years, the house has essentially done the same thing—and done it with a stubbornness that you only truly appreciate once you have the first cookie in your mouth.
1858 on Via Ricasoli, between bread and pasta
Antonio Mattei opened a bakery in the historic center of Prato on September 29, 1858. Initially, he baked bread and made pasta; the pastries came later.
Using the city's traditional recipes, he created his own version of almond biscotti, and it struck a chord. By 1861, his pastry was awarded in Florence, a year later in London, and in 1867 in Paris. When Mattei died in 1885, he left his sons, Cesare and Emilio, a thriving business.
In 1904, Emilio sold the shop to Egisto Ciampolini and Tommaso Pandolfini. Ciampolini's wife, Italia Piccioli, brought her own recipe, the Brutti Buoni, which are still baked in Prato today. Even though Ernesto Pandolfini, Tommaso's son, introduced the first machine to the bakery in the 1920s, the core of the work remained manual.
Prato still likes to argue about where the nickname comes from. Some say it comes from the firm consistency of the cookies, others attribute it to the phonetic similarity with the name Mattei, while others point to a renovation during which the shop walls were covered with striking tiles. The most sober explanation is found in a dictionary: in 1915, Policarpo Petrocchi simply defined "mattonella" as a brick-shaped sweet pastry.
Two sizes, one cookie, five ingredients
We offer the Cantuccini La Mattonella in a small and a large bag. Same dough, same oven; only the quantity differs.
The 250-gram bag is the perfect size for getting to know them and makes for a beautiful gift: paper, string, a tag, nothing else. The 500-gram bag is the right amount for a household that receives guests—it lasts through a weekend, through a week of Advent, or through an entire coffee gathering.
When you break one open, you see what the house stands for: unpeeled almonds with a 20 percent content, whole pine nuts, all held together by a light, firm dough. Nutty, crunchy, understated. Anyone who only knows Cantuccini from the supermarket shelf will hear the difference with the very first bite.
The packaging is part of the experience. The paper is folded and rolled at the top, a string holds it together, and a paper tag simply states "Biscotti di Prato." No window, no foil, no aluminum in the paper. If you want to open the bag, you have to untie a knot—a small effort that makes unpacking a deliberate act rather than just tearing it open.
Five ingredients and nothing else
Wheat flour, sugar, eggs from free-range hens, almonds, pine nuts. This is the complete ingredient list, and it hasn't changed since 1858.
“Pochi ingredienti, scelti con rigore” – few ingredients, rigorously selected – is the house’s philosophy, and the consequence is remarkable: no butterfat, no yeast, no baking powder, no flavorings, no preservatives. The flour is 100 percent Italian, the almonds come from the EU and remain unpeeled because the brown skin adds that slight bitterness that peeled almonds lose.
The dough goes into the oven at 180 to 190 degrees Celsius as elongated "filoncini" and is then cut diagonally into two-centimeter-wide pieces—hence the pointed shape everyone recognizes. Because there are no preservatives, the house specifies a shelf life of three months from the baking date. Artisan, thrifty, constant: the restraint is the real recipe here.
Baking happens daily at the same address as in 1858. The bakery is located in the family palazzo in the center of Prato, the shop in front at Via Ricasoli 20–22—the same rooms, the same street, the same recipe. In an industry where recipes are optimized every few years, this is a quiet statement.
Awards from five cities and a postage stamp
The awards from the 19th century read like a travel itinerary: Florence 1861, London 1862, Paris 1867, Pistoia 1870, Forlì 1871.
However, the most beautiful sentence written about Antonio Mattei did not come from a jury, but from Pellegrino Artusi, the patron saint of Italian culinary literature. He called him a brave man with a "genius for his craft"—and anyone who knows Artusi knows how sparing he was with praise.
The recognition has not ceased. In 2016, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development dedicated a postage stamp to the biscotti bakery, and the house is listed in the register of historic Italian companies. In 2019, the most unusual addition followed: the blue of the bag, used since the 1880s, has since been registered as a color trademark with the European Union Intellectual Property Office. In the Italian food sector, only one other company had achieved this before. Bravo.
To celebrate their 160th anniversary in 2018, the four siblings opened a "Museo Bottega" in Florence on Via Porta Rossa, half shop, half exhibition, where the house's history is told in five sections. No baking happens there—that stays in Prato, in the old laboratory in the family palazzo, where it has been baked since time immemorial.
With espresso, with grappa, as a gift
In Prato, you dip the Cantuccini in Vin Santo until the edge softens. This is the classic way, and it works with any dessert wine.
Try them with an espresso after a meal or with a mild grappa—the almond pairs well with brandy. If you prefer savory, serve them with aged Pecorino and a spoonful of honey. And if you are planning an entire Tuscan evening, you will find salumi from Chianti at Macelleria Falorni and everything else you need in our Italian selection.
If there are any left at the bottom of the bag, don't throw them away. A hard cookie is not a weakness, but an ingredient: coarsely chopped over vanilla ice cream, crumbled into a Tiramisu base, or processed with butter and sugar into a tart crust. Our tip for the last crumbs: into your breakfast milk, just as they do with every hard cookie in Italy.
As a gift, the blue bag is always a safe bet, precisely because it makes so little fuss. You can find more classics from France and Italy in our pastry selection. A cookie made from five ingredients, unchanged since 1858—just the way Francesco, Marcella, Elisabetta, and Letizia Pandolfini have them baked today in the fourth generation. Let yourself be surprised by how much is packed into so little.
