Photograph by Phil Fisk
From the age of six I helped in the family restaurant. My job was to make fruit salad. My grandad taught me how to sharpen a knife and use it to peel. Soon I became the fastest, filling up a tub as big as me with fruit. At the Savoy, 15 years later, I was unbeatable at turning potatoes.
On Tuesdays the restaurant would close so the whole family could eat dinner together. My maternal grandparents would cook rabbit and polenta, and my uncle would make lasagne. We’d talk and talk, but my grandmother had one rule: no one mentions politics.
I’m an ambassador for Italian food. Entry-level dishes like spaghetti and lasagne are important, but I try to elevate the experience according to regionality and seasons.
When we opened Zafferano in 1995, we told customers who asked why there was no pizza to go somewhere else.
If I cook for you and the first thing you do is take a picture for Instagram, maybe you don’t deserve to eat it
Living in Soho in the 1980s gave me the unimaginable idea that you could be exactly who you wanted. I partied with some crazy motherfuckers: Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, Gary Hume. I’d work at the Savoy all day, go clubbing all night, then do it all over again.
Frank Sinatra asked for pasta fagioli when he stayed in the Monet Suite at the Savoy. It wasn’t on the menu so they asked me, the only Italian chef, to make it. He was so happy, one of his henchmen gave me a thick roll of £50 notes in an elastic band. Man, me and the other chefs had a party that night.
Working at the Savoy was like being in the army. There were 120 of us, plus 38 pastry chefs, all on the same pass. Anton Edelmann, the head chef, was tough, but he had to be to deal with so many testosterone-filled men.
My kitchen is a benign dictatorship. I demand hard work from my staff and get mad if someone makes the same mistake twice, but nobody learns anything by being humiliated. Technology – taking orders electronically and induction cookers – has lowered the temperature in more ways than one.
If I cook something for you and the first thing you do is take a picture for Instagram, then maybe you don’t deserve to eat it. Our chefs are striving for perfection; who gives a fuck about your followers? We wanted to ban phones at Locanda Locatelli, but some of our customers were doctors on call so where do you draw the line?
We have a dish on our menu that’s inspired by Italian prisoners of war in the US during the Second World War. For Thanksgiving they combined ingredients from both countries – pasta and turkey trimmings – to make a dish they could all appreciate: pappardelle with white ragu. Watching people come together through food makes me emotional.
Espresso is a moment. You sit with it, you drink it from a cup. The idea of buying an espresso in a fucking piece of paper to take away is completely ridiculous. And taking your lunch back to the office is not eating. It’s filling your car up with fuel. Eating is something different: it’s conviviality; it’s respecting the ritual.
In 1981 I did compulsory military service in Italy. During the interview I lied, telling them I was an artist, because I was scared to be stuck in the kitchen stirring an enormous pot of slop. The lie worked, although I did have to wash up sometimes.
I was bullied when I worked at La Tour d’Argent in Paris. Despite knowing Auguste Escoffier’s Le Guide Culinaire by heart, they thought I was the worst because I was only a “spaghetti”. The restaurant had three Michelin stars, but I came out of there with malnutrition.
When my daughter was a baby, we found out she was allergic to 600 different ingredients. Being in a restaurant could have killed her. My chefs and I spent a week making a safe tomato ketchup she could have with chips.
Since opening a restaurant in the National Gallery, I have a badge that lets me in before it opens. Although it’s beautiful to share with people, The building has incredible power when it’s empty. I’ve fallen in love with [Diego] Velázquez’s portrayal of food in his kitchen scene.
My favourite things
Food
It depends on the season, but at the moment it would be risotto with white truffle.
Drink
We sell a negroni in a pouch that I love: Tanqueray gin, Campari and Carpano Antica Formula.
Dish to make
Chicken paillard. It’s simple, my daughter can eat it and everyone enjoys it.
Place to eat
The Parakeet in Kentish Town. Their braised leeks with pecorino is exceptional; I wish I’d thought of it.
Giorgio Locatelli is consultant chef at Locatelli at the National Gallery, London WC2