We are back on target again at our new Restaurant Caldesi in Campagna. The bar has arrived although a temporary top will have to do until the marble arrives from Italy. Our new coffee machine makes great cappucino and the kitchen now has running water and gas. A good start for cooking!
It is very exciting seeing it coming together and all those finishes we chose months ago are looking great. We have gone for a modern rustic look with loads of linen, natural beige colours and cream. We have even tried out the log fires to see how they work. One flooded the newly decorated room with smoke and the other worked perfectly so I think a new cowl is needed!
I will post a date for an official opening but in the meantime we are welcoming customers who won’t mind missing marble and a wonky loo roll holder in the ladie’s loo!.
See you there,
Katie
As I am still fairly useless at managing my blog and publishing comments etc I will reply as a post.
To Pat, yes you can buy dvd’s of our series “Return to Tuscany” by telephoning our office on 0044 (0) 207 487 0756 or emailing lacucina@caldesi.com. Glad you enjoyed the series.
To Silverbrow
Managing three restaurants and a school in London and the school in Tuscany is not so easy but a really good team behind us makes it possible. We seem to have built a core group of staff who have been with us for around seven years who we regard as family, they are Vito, John, Stefano, Gregorio and more recently Daniela, Jo, Francesco and Marco. Without this gang we would not be able to run one business let alone four.
Luckily the Tuscan school is only for a few weeks every Summer and as much as we worry about leaving our restaurants and school in London, we come back refreshed and re-inspired by the local cooking. This year we came back with yet more Tuscan recipes and some really unusual ones from our stay in Liguria. Four of our core group of staff came with us and are also now armed with further recipes and inspiration.
We also enjoy the differences between the restaurants, two urban - one country. Two formal - one informal. One modern Italian - one Tuscan and one using antique as well as new Italian recipes. This allows me to indulge my passion in discovering further recipes and of course eating them!
We have had to succumb to the British bank holiday weekend and realise that sometimes nothing can be done. So we have half a bar, half the plumbing finished and almost finished logo and certainly no signage until the middle of September. We will be forced to relax - aaahh! RELAX, something Giancarlo and I just don’t do well.
Luckily we have an Indian wedding to go to this weekend so that will be fascinating for us plus loads of recipes to test for Giancarlo’s forthcoming appearance on Market Kitchen. Should keep us busy, - oh and a whole lamb to butcher for a catering event on Monday.
Busy opening Bray
Why does our memory fail us when we have good ideas for new projects – why don’t we remember the pains and stresses of putting ideas into practice. Like giving birth, we forget the process and remember only the joy of the result the BABY. Co-incidentally similar to the word BRAY and just as scary.
We are currently opening a restaurant (feels like we are having a baby) in Bray in Berkshire. As any business unfolds and deadlines are not met we feel the hopelessness of not being in control. Why does the world go away in August, could they not stagger their holidays over the summer months so that they don’t all abandon me in my moments of need. Don’t they care that I have left it far too late to order crockery, cutlery, glassware and signage (God, we have no ladies and gent’s signs) because I too took annual leave. Of course not, they are sunning themselves on a beach while I am dusting off attic finds to provide glasses for our opening, getting our seven year old to draw a man and woman to stick onto the loo doors, borrowing tablecloths to make do before the Italian beautiful cloths arrive after the long holiday!
Our Head Chef, Gregorio, between dusting his new kitchen is preparing dishes to put on the new menu. Today was the day of three main courses, steak, veal and an unusual lasagna. The steak and the veal are on – so tasty and moreish. He likes spotted sauce on a plate and I want it by the ladleful (like my mum’s gravy) so we have to reach a compromise. If something drives me mad about modern restaurant food it’s the stupid amount of sauce you are given to go with meat or fish. I don’t want to look at it I want to bloody eat it.
Anyway the lasagna needs work, it is something we ate in Tuscany and God it was lovely, the best lasagna I have ever had, we want to do our version of it, so four lasagna’s later we are still trying and my new black trousers are straining at the fly – but so what, its all in the name of research.
