The Canton Experience!

Meet Stephano Canton (left above) and Paolo Veriti (right above), Guests on the most recent edition of the Chanters Lodge Experience with the Milli Jam Ingredient featuring Jay Hillz. The Experience is our weekly radio show airing every Sunday at 20.30 hours on Zambezi 107.7 fm, Livingstone’s leading local radio station. As you might guess from their names, Steph and Paolo hail from Italy, Stephano intends to settle in Zambia and revealed to listeners that just the previous weekend he had married Claire, his Zambian girl friend with whom he is very much in love! Both Steph and Paolo hail from a small town in Italy about an hour or so north of Venice. Paolo was visiting Zambia, staying at Chanters Lodge, helping Stephano to set up their new business in Livingstone.

Our Italian guests told our listeners that they had recently opened a new establishment in down town Livingstone and currently were offering 18 different flavours of home made Italian ice cream. Their new industrial pasta machine had just arrived in the country so they would shortly be offering pasta as well as pizza at their new Canton Restaurant. They told us that together with the garden the restaurant can accommodate 200+ customers and that currently they employ 11 staff, though finding well trained workers was proving to be a challenge. They also offer Zambian food. Stephano had first come to Zambia as a volunteer in Northern Province and had fallen in love with the country, the people and the weather.

The music on the show was good. Stephano asked us to play Kumanda by Chico Wise ft B1, his new bride’s favourite track, so we did. We also played Chris Malinchak’s ‘So Good’. Others were from Slap Dee, Jesse J ft Ariana Grande and Nicki Minaj, Redlight, Trey Songz and ShiftKey. The oldie of the week was by van Morrison but no-one won the prize we offer of a dinner for two at the lodge to the first person to text us the name of the artist on the track. My pick of the week was a new track from Magic! ‘I Would’.

Our Guests told us that they have a Karaoke night every Friday at the Canton and hope in future to have a live local band at weekends. They had not had time to participate in any of the Livingstone tourist activities having been too busy with the wedding  and setting up a business. They support Udinese their local football team in Italy, famous for having brought up a lot of young players including Alexis Sanchez now a big star with Arsenal. They both love Zambian music. Paolo told listeners that he’s been married for 30 years and has two daughters, one living in Milan, one living in London.

Asked where they would like to be and what they would like to be doing ten years’ from now, Stephano wanted to have many children with Claire and to have a successful big ice cream company in Zambia with many franchisees. Paolo hoped to be still visiting Zambia many times a year. We thanked them for coming on the show and wished them all the best with their business

0