La Pavoni

La Pavoni was founded in Milan in 1905 by Desiderio Pavoni, in a small workshop. The company's own history credits it with the invention of the portafilter and with the first espresso machine, the «Ideale». In 1948 came its first horizontal-boiler machine, the model 47 known as «La Cornuta», designed by Gio Ponti, Antonio Fornaroli and Alberto Rosselli; in 1961, building on an idea from a Milanese craftsman, it launched its first electric machine for home use, the Europiccola.

It is now headquartered in San Giuliano Milanese and, as its site states, is part of the Smeg Group. The home range covers lever machines (Europiccola, Professional, Stradivari, Milano, Expo and the Esperto series, introduced in 2016, which lets the user monitor brewing pressure while lowering the lever), single-boiler manual machines (New Casabar, New Domus Bar), semi-professional machines (Mini Cellini, the heat-exchanger Cellini, and the dual-boiler Botticelli and Diamantina) and grinders (Kube Mill, Cilindro). For cafés and bars there is a commercial line: Desiderio, Geniale, Diamante and BarT.

Its technical documentation section publishes, for each model listed, the user manual and the spare parts catalogue as PDFs, and the site keeps a list of service centres by country. Australia and Germany have their own dedicated sites.