Gennaro uses his outdoor kitchen come rain or shine. His daughters Olivia, left, and Chloe love going on foraging trips, then coming back to cook
MY KITCHEN
Gennaro Contaldo The restaurant chef and BBC presenter shows Val Wotton his outdoor kitchen. Photographs GEOFF WILKINSON
G
ennaro was born in Minori, a small town on the Amalfi coast, but has lived in the UK for more than 40 years, running award-winning Italian restaurants. He mentored the young Jamie Oliver and still works closely with him as a restaurant consultant. More recently, he has presented the BBC show Two Greedy Italians, with Antonio Carluccio.Gennaro lives in east London with his wife, Liz, and their nine-year-old twins, Chloe and Olivia. The family home is a typical Victorian townhouse, tall and narrow, sandwiched between identical neighbours. But it stands out in one respect. Across the end of the narrow back garden is a three-sided building – Gennaro’s outdoor kitchen. 78 BBC Good Food Middle East September 2013
Why build a kitchen outdoors? I always seemed to be running around too fast. So, seven years ago, I built this kitchen to remind myself where I come from. It’s like the kitchens in my family’s homes in Italy, where I can cook real food and be in time with the seasons. A local builder did all the work. What did you want? I wanted the wood-fired oven, charcoal burners where I can boil water and cook pasta and risotto, and a grill where I can barbecue. I wanted to use very old bricks, so we found these fantastic Victorian bricks. And I wanted to have all my favourite things around me – my pots and pans (some I’ve bought
and some left by my family), my wooden spoons, my knives and all my baskets. Wherever I go, I collect old earthenware plates, old wood. I love old stuff. Then there’s all the preserves I make myself. What do you cook here? Everything from pizzas to Christmas dinner. The oven’s fantastic for roasts, bread and cakes, and it frees up the kitchen indoors – which is quite small – for big family gatherings, like at Christmas. In summer, I come out here and light the oven – just throw in wood and set fire to it – almost every night. I cook, or I sit and carve walking sticks. Once the oven’s alight, it’s nice and warm, and it’s great eating out here, under the grapevine.