Focus on WALTON STREET
Scalini
Mario Paggetti’s Walton Street restaurant continues the legacy of the London Italian, as he reveals to Absolutely
‘M
adonna mia,’ muttered Mario Paggetti. It was 1965, a couple of years since Mario came to Britain to learn English after catering school in Florence. He was working for £20 per week in a Bournemouth hotel – twice what he had earnt in Nottingham – when he first heard of La Trattoria Terrazza, the Soho restaurant making a name for itself. His Neopolitan colleague had told him he was too quick for Bournemouth, and that waiters at La Terrazza made £80. So they caught a train to London to ask for a job. That the manager was from the same corner of Tuscany was a colpa di fortuna. ‘You start tomorrow or you don’t start at all’. Mario was caught off guard, but it was worth ignoring his week’s notice and his lack of accommodation in London, for it set his course to become the Godfather of Italian cuisine in Knightsbridge. At a time when smart London establishments knelt at the altar of
French cooking and followed its strict and often complex commandments, La Terrazza was doing things differently. It opened after Franco Lagattolla and Mario Cassandro met in the early 50s, hankering after the food of their homeland and recognising that London had a surplus of highly skilled staff, in Britain for the same reason as Mario Paggetti. With this supply, Cassandro’s legendary people skills and Lagatolla’s kitchen oversight, the restaurant was soon attracting artists, Hollywood stars, showbiz correspondents and royalty. Part of that service was that waiters would take the bullet for diners when it came to cutting into the Pollo Sorpresa – the Italian equivalent of Chicken Kiev. So it was that the young Mario found himself accidentally jetting hot, garlicky oil all over the ‘beautiful jacket’ of Bruce Forsyth. Almost in tears, Mario began wiping, certain his job was over. The TV
star was a little perturbed, but said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve got two more like this at home.’ And so Mario’s life at La Terrazza continued. Soon customers were asking to sit in ‘the ginger waiter’s station’. But it was here he learnt his craft as a proprietor, watching Lagattolla and Cassandro ‘like a hawk’. Noting how assiduous the former was with food standards and how welcome the latter made his guests feel, Mario felt growing confidence: ‘It was not if I will make it but when.’ Trattorias began spreading across London, almost exclusively at the hands of former employees or associates of La Terrazza using the same irresistible formula. Almost every well-known Italian restaurant in the city was spawned by it, and TV chefs like Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo are the tip of iceberg when it comes to the Terrazza mafia. Mario has been involved in several of these restaurants, and over 35 years has opened six much-loved ones of his own. Scalini, opened on Walton Street in 1988, is every bit the traditional, welcoming trattoria. Service, food and décor owe much to Mario’s experiences in Soho. He and Valerio Calzolari, his partner and another colleague from La Terrazza, still help to manage Scalini today. Assisting General Manager Michel Lengui, the affable 79-year-old Mario’s knowledge and tales delight customers five days a week. And yes, in a reflection of Scalini itself, they do serve Pollo Sorpresa, only under a more romantic name. 1-3 Walton Street / 020 7225 2301 scalinilondon.co.uk
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25/05/2016 19:22