With the forthcoming Vicini (1916 Park Avenue)—a boutique grocery store, pasta shop, and home goods store in Lafayette Square—Dawn Wilson is on the cusp of realizing a dream more than a decade in the making.

Ten years ago, the St. Louis native moved to a small town in Tuscany to learn about the slow food movement, handmade pasta, and authentic Italian cuisine. The experience sparked her dream to open a pastaria and market of her own, modeled after the corner stores that she fell in love with while living abroad. “Once I came back from there, I was kind of obsessed,” Wilson says. "That’s where the dream of this brick and mortar began."