Diario - Entry 2
Steel beams, tiles, recipe tests and pressure. The second entry in the diary of opening my first trattoria, Tiella.
So much has happened in two weeks. Almost all of the mint green paint is gone from the outside, the steel beam that got put in place instead of the wall is all boxed in, and we have the foundation of a bar. Even though it’s now November, the light that hits the bar and dining room around midday is incredible. It seems to dance around the leftover dust from the brick removal work, and even though we’re still so far off I can start picturing a stream of guests huddling around the end, drinking Fernet Branca and half pints of lager.
Last week, we sat in the basement outside the little office and wrote down everything that still needed doing. It’s a lot. The building is currently something of a shell. We’ve got new contractors starting today who have the enormous job of sorting out all of the electrics. Our beautiful building was constructed in the 1850s and there are so many wires everywhere that we’ve joked about how new tenants must have just added and added every time they arrived, rather than sorting it out. But we’re trying to give this old girl some love. Make her shine again! There are dozens of exposed wires and pipes down in the basement that it’s difficult to imagine it becoming a production kitchen, where busy hands will be rolling pasta, cleaning fish and vegetables.
Every other day we’ve been conducting interviews for the kitchen team. It’s a huge step from Tiella’s first iteration at the pub. We were four in the kitchen then, a tight knit team who kept those busy stoves humming. I was one of three chefs, where I cooked every night on the hot line as well as doing the pass. When we open the trattoria, there’ll be eight of us. The weight of responsibility is settling on my shoulders, I’m trying to get comfortable with the newfound pressure. In total, with all of the front of house and bar team we’ll be close to twenty. Twenty people whose livelihoods and everyday rhythms will be dependent on the decisions we make. It’s equal parts terrifying and exhilarating, much like this entire project. But I keep reminding myself that this is what I’ve trained for. All the years spent in restaurants, building up good habits and observing how others ran their businesses.
One of the formulas that’s wracking my brain at the moment is, how do we:
Provide ourselves and our team a liveable wage that we deserve
Support the growers, suppliers and producers that we love and care deeply about
Retain the highest possible quality of our food
Remain accessible for the community of guests around us without pricing them out
It’s constantly on my mind. Neighbours and locals keep popping by, asking questions about the price range and menu. This week I found an old drinks menu from when it used to be The Stringray Globe. A glass of house wine was £2.95. I’m scared that’s what the neighbourhood wants, but we can’t give that to them. I want Tiella to be a trattoria in the truest sense of the word, which means that it’s a place for everybody. In the trattoria in the village where I grew up, l’Antica Drogheria Bergamini in San Giovanni in Persiceto, you would see builders in their scuffled up boots on one end of the room, while impeccably dressed businessmen sat at the other. One would be drinking an inexpensive beer while the other had a bottle brought up from the cellar. My parents’ trattoria, Maria Pia’s in Wellington, was much the same. But is this too idealistic of an idea in our day and age? You have to stay adaptable, weigh up the costings on your menu and realise that nowadays people are looking for a deal. On Thursday I couldn’t turn off the pessimism, it’s hard to avoid the constant murmurs of industry doom and gloom these days, you hear it everywhere. But that’s when I get the hands busy.
Busy looking at tiles, holding them up to the wall while discussing grout colour. I’ve ordered six samples now, browsing tiles is a great nighttime activity. One of my favourite parts of the process so far has been developing the moodboards. I made ones for the fitout, for the glass, crockery and cutlery, one for the uniforms and of course for the menus. It was a process of collating all of the photographs I’ve taken over the years while in restaurants, plus a fair few from the family archive. Then the dreams from inside my head.
We’ve picked the colour for the exterior awning, a beautiful deep rust. Holding it up to the tiles outside, the combination of colours looked so similar to Maria Pia’s. Pulls on the finest of heartstrings, but that’s a story for another time. I wish my mum could see it.I’ve started testing some dishes too. At home I made spaghetti ai frutti di mare, with mussels clams and prawns. They seafood will be at its peak when we open in winter, even though everyone thinks it’s a summer dish. I was thinking about a sharing size, made for two guests, which comes to the table on a large dish with a nice big serving spoon. Finger bowls with lemon and glistening ice buckets with bottles of Verdicchio inside.
Long way to go until then. Bit stressed, worried we won’t be done with construction by Christmas but we’re getting there day by day. Get the skates back on, speak soon xx
Love the writing and your musings, thank you for sharing!
Avoiding a quality/affordability/values trade-off is such a struggle for me too as a small wine producer. Affordability was the first to fall, and it still pains me to charge $40 a bottle! A tangential rant: I’m not sure it’s the same in London but it frustrates me in Aotearoa that wine shoulders so much of the margin on a menu. Surely it’s better to sell two $15 glasses than one at $22?
Excited to see the creative ways you approach these problems! I won’t be in London for a long time, but will devour your diarios in the meantime x
Wonderful to read your updates. You are a Daring Dara ! Keep up the great work.