I was born in London to an Italian father and English mother. Dad came to England as a waiter in the 1950s from Naples - I don’t think he intended to stay for more than a year, but in a wonderfully cliched vignette – ‘Italian waiter meets young English woman and follows her to London’ – he met my mother at the Devon hotel where he worked, and never went home. For most of his London career, he worked at Mario & Franco’s Tiberio in Mayfair – a glamorous Italian restaurant which was to be part of London’s dining revolution (you can read about Mario & Franco in The Spaghetti Tree and here or here). I used to love hearing tales of the restaurant as a child: especially the stories of Sinatra’s visits and other glitterati customers. Dad’s working life certainly nurtured the fascination with restaurants and food that I am fortunate enough to indulge today, not least providing me a rare insight to the behind-the-scene workings of the hospitality business.
the chaotic cook
musings on food and other things
