Il Pane di Maurizio Sarioli

Lievito madre bread, with monococco at the centre of it

Bread made with lievito madre leads the counter at this Brescia forneria, alongside focacce, pizza, grissini, briosche, Biscotti bresciani, panini imbottiti and seasonal leavened sweets. Maurizio Sarioli founded the shop in 1986 and still runs it as owner, head baker and master panettiere. The bread programme runs to four main types, from a large ten-kilo pagnotta down to loaves built on heritage and alternative grains. The signature Pane Bresciano uses autoctona monococco flour, which ties the bake directly to Brescian grain culture, while rice, kamut, farro and grano saraceno also turn up in the doughs, some of them macerated at 45 degrees before they go in. The house calls itself Maestri del Lievito Madre, and slow fermentation is the through line.

A working bakery that doubles as the morning bar

The room organises itself around the counter and the production behind it rather than around a menu. People come for the day's bread, pizza and focaccia, and coffee is served come al bar, so the shop works as a breakfast stop as much as a place to buy loaves. It sits in Brescia's museum district, which means it serves the daily local routine and the visitors moving through the cultural centre in equal measure. The reputation is unusual for a neighbourhood bakery: Gambero Rosso has given Sarioli its Tre Pani, the guide's top bread distinction, for the 2024, 2025 and 2026 editions, placing him in a small Lombardy group and making him the only Brescia baker carrying it.

Order from what has just come out

Take whatever the bake has just delivered. For bread, Pane Bresciano with monococco is the most place-specific choice, while the big pagnotta format and the alternative-grain loaves show how far the lievito madre programme reaches. For something savoury, the focacce are the strong pick, with pizza whole or by the slice, grissini and panini imbottiti behind them; the filled pizzas come on a dough that stays soft without turning heavy. At breakfast, pair the coffee with a briosca or Biscotti bresciani. In the sweet register the panettone carries the most weight: Sarioli won the professional category at Panettone senza confini in 2023 and took bronze at the Coppa del Mondo del Panettone in Milan. Around Christmas, Bossolà, the traditional Brescian sweet bread, joins the same leavened-sweet tradition.