Ortega Y Gasset defined the market as a hole tied at one end. In Bucharest, this connection was made on the last day of 1852, when the spectators who witnessed the first play played at the Bucharest "National" did not know that, in fact, the times were playing on them.
The old Uliță a Târgoviștei, the escape route of the boyars from the wrath of Stambul, became the main artery of the city, and the Theater Square, now born, will be the catalyst for the modernization of this capital on the edge of Europe. In a few years, the first cafes, restaurants, confectioneries and luxury hotels will appear here, fervently importing elements of Western civilization.
Literary and artistic bohemia, affirmed even now, together with the boyar class aspiring to cosmopolitanism, will signal the exit of historical time from its Asian slowness. In the same year, on the ground floor of the Damari inn, on the site where today the former "Bancorex" building is located, two Aromanian brothers inaugurate a company, which, in addition to delicatessens and colonials, will impose on the Bucharest market a landmark never equaled in terms of products cake shop. This is where the "final battle" will take place between the sweets of the Levantine tradition and those of the West, the latter definitively adjudging its supremacy.
From this moment on, the company of the Macedonian family and the old National Theater will twin their fates for almost a century, becoming a showcase of royal Romania.
Capsa dynasty
Starting from 1769, the old and flourishing Aromanian citadel of Moscow, which drained the trade between Vienna and Constantinople, collapsed under the blows of the Turkish armies. Worthy but disillusioned people, the inhabitants seek their fortunes in the four dice. Among them, a furrier, Dumitru Capșa, who settled on the banks of the Dâmbovița around 1780. That's when his shop in Piața Sf. Anton, behind the Manuc Inn, is mentioned.
Together with a woman from Brasov, Zamfira Cernovodeanu, he will start a family, and four boys will carry on his memory. One of them, Constantin (1790-1841), will also inherit the craft, becoming over time one of the most respected of his guild, a "thin-skinned" as they said in those times, which meant that he satisfied the choicest tastes of the protipendada. He marries the daughter of a merchant from Ploiești, Ana Vasiliu (1801-1870), with whom he will have no less than 12 children, of whom only four will live, three boys and one girl.
His business develops, his father's old shop becoming untenable - thus, in 1830, he moves the company to Zamfir Inn, on Blănari, the fiefdom of the leaders of the guild. Hard work and skill will give him the opportunity to send his son, Vasile, to study medicine in Vienna, he being the first graduate of higher education in the family - specific to peoples without landed aristocracy, Aromanians will value intellectual professions very much. Perhaps not by chance, given the ravages caused by infant mortality in his own family, Ștefan Capșa will become one of the pioneers of Romanian gynecology.
But the one that interests us is another son of the Macedonian furrier, Vasile (1827 – 1877; 1879), who will found the prestigious dynasty of Capșa confectioners. Thus, after a useful apprenticeship with confectioner Constantin Lefteru, who had an inn in the area occupied today by Palatul Nifon on Calea Victoriei, he opened his own shop, helped by his brother Anton (1821 – 1880), an official at the state treasury, in an outbuilding of the Damari Inn, on July 12, 1852.
In just two years, the other brother, Constantin (1832 – 1890), will join them, and the business begins to take shape. The company is also now equipped with a laboratory. A common custom in those times, many of those who dealt with trade also flirted with usury, and the Capșa brothers excelled in this activity as well, in a few years managing to acquire an imposing building belonging to a branch of the Filipescu noble family, which could not repay a loan.
Located across the road from Damari Inn, this location will now house the business of the three Capșa brothers. Even now, a custom that will last even later in the family business is distinguished, that of keeping the annual commercial balance close to 0, a sign that investments were paramount in the expenditure hierarchy - this balance always included donations to the state, in that period economic activities being taxed flat rate. This was probably the secret of the family's success in business.
The company's enthusiast was Vasile, who also attempted a daring trip to the Crimea, where the Anglo-French-Turkish troops besieging Sevastopol were stationed in the war against the Russian forces: 1853-1856. This merchant epic has become legendary, highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit that has become a family brand. Set out on the road in 1855 with a wagon full of food intended for sale to the troops of the anti-Russian alliance, he will have the misfortune of an early spring that will lead to the compromise of the goods.
The blow could be fatal to the business, but on the way back, in Bulgaria, with the last savings, Vasile buys early fruits and rose petals, prepares jam and sells it successfully south of the Danube, managing to cover the losses. The passion for business trips will not leave the Aromanian confectioner, he taxis in the great capitals or economic centers of the West – Vienna, Paris or Leipzig. The business rolls like a snowball, and the Capșa brothers' company becomes the supplier of many merchants in the province.
They received the luxury products, the target clientele being the rich blanket. Exotic fruit jams, fondant candies, caramels or chocolate products with the letterhead of the most prestigious European companies will impose the Capșa brand as a leader in the field on the avid and demanding Bucharest market of the time, definitively ending the dispute with Casa Fialkowski, located opposite the theater and on the road at the same time. Left alone in the business, after the retirement of his brothers, Vasile could not resist the labor for a long time and was forced to close the company in 1871. Like many people addicted to the profession, he could not bear the inactivity and died quickly, at only 50 years old.
Grigore Capsa
But the glorious pages of the Capșa House were only to be written now, and the one who will do it will be the youngest brother of Vasile Capșa, Grigore (1841-1902). Between 1864 and 1868, he apprenticed in Paris at the famous House of Boissier, an emblem in the world of confectionery and fine pastry products from Hexagon. After returning to the country, he will open a new business together with his brother Constantin on the ground floor of Casa Slătineanu, located at the intersection of Căia Victoriei and Edgar Quinet.
The success will be fulminant, in just one year Capșa will become a supplier of the Royal House, and in four years the entire building will become the property of the two brothers. The secret of this fulminant rise is the organizational spirit of Grigore Capșa, the class imposed on all services and the quality of the products offered. At the beginning, most of the employees will be French, in time, after a demanding qualification in Paris, they will be co-opted and local.
Thus, Casa Capșa will develop a very laborious system of staff recruitment and loyalty – in order to preserve professional secrets, the workers here were not fired, but neither were they reprimanded if they chose to leave the company. Each specialization will co-opt workers from a certain part of the country – the confectioners came from the Moldova area, the cooks from Oltenia, and the technical staff were selected from Transylvania.
The security personnel were recruited exclusively from among the Albanian community in Bucharest. Also, Capșa aims to permanently refine the services offered: it builds specialized laboratories for each range of products, and the imported ones come only from famous Western houses.
This efficient management will allow the expansion of the company, the catering area being completely covered - in 1886 the Capșa restaurant opens, and in 1891, the cafe. Also in 1886, the Casai hotel was inaugurated. Now, the business of the Macedonian brothers will become Bucharest's benchmark in the field, setting the tone for all modernizations: the first private telephone, in 1890, is located here, and in 1906 it becomes the first public catering company in the Capital lit by electricity.
In the same year, the most modern refrigeration installations for ice products are introduced here, and he is also among the first to offer catering services, with the help of "ovens for transporting hot things". Grigore Capșa was a very careful entrepreneur, thus, for the privacy of the chosen faces, he also opens three private salons, plus one reserved only for ladies.
The garden of his residence in Șosea produced an important part of the vegetables and fruits sacrificed on the gastronomic altar in the location on Calea Victoriei, and for truffandales he explores the most refined geographies, such as, for example, the "strawberries of Constantinople".
A menu of the House from that period showcased culinary refinements worthy of the best gourmets – smoked deer tongues, artichokes or Mogoșoaia pumpkins with ceps and frozen butter, poultry drum from Găiesti, Rhine salmon with Remoulade sauce, celery salad with truffles , grilled clams de Mans, crawfish a la Parisienne.
Dessert could be represented, for example, by the wonderful gaufrette cakes, which were shaped like a honeycomb. Customers could also enjoy fondant candies, chocolate eggs, fine chocolate candies, caramels, candied fruits, all of which were packed with great art. The wines were also up to par, as this sumptuous "wine bottled at the springs of France" proves.
In addition to the good people of Bucharest, Capșa ended up serving the royal houses of Serbia and Bulgaria. This level of demand led to a careful sorting of the clientele, those who did not meet the company's standards not being served. Also, fiddlers were not allowed in the venue except at some festive meals. The latter created the reputation of the Capșa House, benefiting from them also crowned heads, such as Frantz Joseph of Austria-Hungary or the kings of Serbia or Bulgaria. When the number of guests was very large, the hall of the National Theater was used.
From a few thousand lei at its foundation, Casa Capșa, at the death of Grigore Capșa, had a share capital of almost 1.300.000 lei. The descendant of the cojocar from Moscopole managed to become a municipal councilor in Bucharest and even a parliamentarian, from the Conservative Party. Unfortunately, his only son, whom he wanted as his successor at the management of the company, succumbed to tetanus at only 29 years old. After him, Casa Capșa was owned by his daughters, and for a long time the business was handled by a son-in-law, Gh. Zanne, assisted by Ștefan, Constantin Capșa's son, and by a devoted and skilled director, Rudolf Knappe.
end
The boyar cap lasted until the First World War, when, as is known, it was plundered and turned into the cap of the Bulgarian officers. The damages exceeded 2.000.000 lei, and in 1926 they were still not recovered. After 1918, the clientele becomes eclectic, and the cafe is "occupied" by writers, teachers, artists or journalists. The exclusive salons were also attacked by the bourgeoisie hungry for public recognition. The company expands its business and becomes a joint-stock company: it takes over the Athenee Palace restaurant and the one at the Lido pool, after Grigore Capșa had also opened a branch in Sinaia.
The turnover grew rapidly, in 1927 the social capital reached 16 million lei. The confectionery continued to keep its privileged place in the business, a famous episode being the invention of the Joffre cake recipe, made in honor of the French general, who was visiting Romania in 1922 and who was also the guest of Capșea. Other famous confectioners will also leave here, such as Jean Nestor, the one who opened the famous Bucharest confectionary with the same name.
The chocolate and candy products, however, so famous until then, were abandoned, Capșa ceding the right to label its products with the name of the old firm on Calea Victoriei to Societăță Zamfirescu, another famous brand in the manufacture of sweets. At the same time, the cafe is also abandoned, the bad mouths claiming that this was done at the suggestion of the Security, due to too many secrets peddling here.
Around the time of the Second War, Capșa was now a simple limited partnership, and the boom period had ended. First the earthquake of November 1940 and then the world conflagration affect it, being the victim of the American and German bombings in the spring and summer of 1944 – the facade facing Calea Victoriei is destroyed, and the roof and upper floors, badly damaged.
Barely rebuilt, it suffers other terrible blows: one after the other, Gh. Zanne and Rudolf Knappe die, and Ștefan Capșa becomes paralysed. The end comes immediately, in 1950, Capșa being nationalized, and the dying Ștefan Capșa mercilessly evicted from the hotel. The National Theatre, the beacon of the modernization of Căia Victoriei and the secret of Capşa's rise, had already disappeared after the German bombardment of August 26, 1944, and the Royal Palace had been left without an owner after the episode of December 30, 1947.
Epilogue
The one who signs these lines met 10-15 years ago a gentleman between 60 and 70 years old, modestly dressed and avidly smoking a popular cigarette. He had a very sad face and he was introduced to me as Vasile Capșa, "the last descendant of the owners of Casa Capșa". I remember that gentleman told me that, requested by a television station, he would have tried to give an interview in the restaurant of his ancestors.
The new owner, however, would have accepted the producers of the respective television, but did not allow him access, imposing a ban on him from entering the premises. I cannot verify this account, but it is certain that the current company with the header "Capșa", on Calea Victoriei, did not inherit the refined managerial style of the worthy Aromanian family. The connection with the past is given only by the number and some indifferent walls like an ancient god.
Very nice article. Can you recommend the bibliography used for family history?