Local People

A taste of Italy

Davide Grigolato and his wife Maia are a wonderfully warm and welcoming Italian couple who have recently made West Devon their home.

Davide has loved food for as long as he can remember - both eating it and cooking it - and has always had his heart set on becoming a chef, following in his grandmother Maria’s footsteps. Maria was a famous TV chef in the 60s who visited failing restaurants and advised them on turning their business around. Initially Davide worked as a web designer, but pursued a parallel life in various restaurants in Milan while he trained to be a chef. Seeking to widen his horizons, he decided to spend a few months travelling and experiencing other food cultures in Koh Phangan in Thailand, as well as New York and Miami, before arriving in London where he had an established group of friends. He quickly secured a job with a chain of restaurants in London, but before he had even started, he was headhunted by another restaurant. His career rocketed as he demonstrated his skill as a chef at a number of prestigious venues, such as White Box in Chelsea, haunt of the rich and famous, Elysée Artisan Café in Hammersmith which was awarded a certificate of excellence by Trip Advisor, and then as executive chef at Cacciari’s in South Kensington. It was while he was working at L’Elysée that Elton John sent in a member of staff to order a take-away meal. Elton John enjoyed the food so much that for the next year Davide regularly cooked for him - this was not without its difficulties as the superstar often had particular requests, such as the month when all his food had to be the colour green! Davide and his wife Maia both grew up in Milan but didn’t meet until 2015 when they were both living in London. Maia is a climate change advisor and is now much in demand as

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environmental issues have come to the fore. However this was not the case six years ago, so she changed direction for a while and worked at establishing a family restaurant in Hackney. Unfortunately, the timing of Brexit caused investment problems and despite building a good following of customers, and Davide leaving his job to come on board and help, the enterprise became unviable. The couple closed the restaurant in 2019 and then a short time later the leisure industry was hit by the disastrous effects of the pandemic. In the summer of 2020 Davide and Maia decided to leave London and moved to West Devon. Davide was keen to start cooking for people as soon as possible but realised that he needed to understand the local customer base and discover what people wanted. He was soon advised that although good food is appreciated, tiny haute cuisine portions are not! He started by setting up a Facebook group and cooking a different recipe live every week; this was followed by a take-away meal service from September 2020 to June 2021, before he put on his first Italian Jack supper club in Tavistock last summer. Davide initially started developing his Italian Jack pop-up restaurant concept in 2015 when he rented the kitchen at The Rosemary Branch in Islington from time to time. Jeremy Corbyn came and ate at one of the events and declared he had never had such good food. I also recently had the pleasure of attending an Italian Jack evening and can vouch for the excellence of the food – and the quantity. Davide has embraced local Devon produce and uses it to give traditional Italian recipes a new twist. He is passionate about food and totally absorbed by finetuning his recipes, cooking every single element from scratch. He is equally comfortable cooking meat or plant-based food, in fact one of his prizewinning inventions is a vegan carbonara. The Italian Jack evenings are proving very popular, but Davide is also building a reputation as a private chef catering for tailored dinner parties for up to 10 guests, as well as larger events with up to 50 guests. In addition, he is in the process of creating a recipe book revolving around the concept of using quality, local produce to recreate Italian meals in this country – the book will be published later this year. Creating excellent food is his raison d’être, and his mind is continually bubbling over with ideas for recipes and ways to present his food to this new community. Family is also hugely important to him and as you would expect, his daughter has already been introduced to cooking. Davide says her tastebuds are developing well at the age of just four - so she may be another chef in the making?

Rosemary Best

For more information visit Facebook: italianjack; www. italianjack.co.uk or for bookings contact hello@italianjack. co.uk or 07745 934897. See our Food & Drink section for Davide’s Devon Carbonara recipe.

Italian Jack supper club dates: 26 February: Sicilian Winter 5 March: Umbrian Hills 19 March: Spring in Liguria

A natural flair

Nicky Edmunds co-owns two local Insideout shops with her husband, and also designs and makes a wide range of ceramics for her Habulous business.

Nicky’s father was in the navy and so her somewhat itinerant upbringing included nine different schools, a period in Canada, but also a relatively long stay in Liskeard for a couple of years. She struggled with dyslexia during her education but did well in art and after studying it at Falmouth school of art and design she went on to specialise in illustration at Swansea. She met her husband Paul and the couple moved to London. Doubting her ability as an illustrator, Nicky worked in pubs for the next three years. It was an interesting time as one pub regularly hosted book signings and was frequented by theatre people, while another quiet pub near Camden Palace often attracted famous celebrities. Following this, Nicky went into recruitment and discovered she had a natural flair for the career, becoming a partner in the company six years later. However when her son was born, she realised the job required spending far too many hours away from her family and she started considering a future in retail. The sector was booming at this point and

Photo by Nadine Critchley

shop leases were few and far between. Nicky and Paul sold everything they owned to be able to pay the purchase price of a lease and moved back in with their parents. They looked at 270 towns, before a lease came up in Tavistock offering exactly what they were hunting, as well as being close to Nicky’s mother who had settled in Calstock. Their first Insideout shop was soon off the ground in Tavistock, selling a range of gifts and homeware. The new lifestyle suited the couple well, particularly after the birth of their second child,

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when they realised they could maintain a good work/home balance, sharing both childcare and shop management. Spurred on by their success they opened another shop in Dartmouth, followed by a third in Princesshay in Exeter. However when the Dartmouth rent rose extortionately, they decided to close that shop and focus on the other two which were trading well. When Nicky reached her 40s, she decided to make a few changes after her health suffered and she started feeling a little burnt out. Her love of art and craft had led her to experiment with a number of different forms over the years, such as mosaic, knitting, painting and stained glass, but overall she knew she preferred creating in 3D. In her early London days, she had made polymer clay beads and sold them on a stall. So she signed up for a clay handbuilding class in Plymouth, and was soon fascinated by the possibilities of the medium. She told herself she could buy a kiln if she sold enough wax melts. The day came and she eagerly awaited the results of her first firing – only to discover that all her pieces had broken! Undaunted she took a class to learn how to throw clay on the wheel. She thought she would be able to do it but recalls her first efforts were disastrous, however she bought her own wheel and persisted. She has discovered there is a steep learning curve to becoming a potter but she is now six years in and creating beautiful ceramics, so the time investment has been worth it. The pandemic created huge difficulties for retailers, especially small businesses selling non-essential goods. Nicky saw large retailers of essential goods, also selling non-essential goods, while small businesses like hers had to close. So she started a social media campaign on behalf of the local retail community as well as a petition for the Government to rectify this unfair situation. She was contacted by newspapers, and radio and TV stations to comment on the difficulties it was causing, and has since become quite a ‘go-to’ contact for the media on retail issues. The pandemic compelled Nicky and Paul to re-evaluate their company and it made sense to grow online sales, particularly for Nicky’s ceramics business – Habulous (her daughter’s combination of happy and fabulous). Paul converted the other half of the garage creating an even bigger studio and Nicky set to work. She also started introducing their new products in a regular 10-minute live presentation on Facebook, which regularly received 1000 viewings during lockdowns and is still very popular. The ceramics business has grown substantially in the last two years and recently Nicky took on two trainee potters through the Kickstart scheme and is now looking for another potter to work alongside her. She says she has always been an active ‘doer’, but now she also feels more confident in sharing her opinions, and having found her voice she can be more true to herself.

Photos by Lucy Jones

Rosemary Best

For more details visit insideouthome.co.uk or habulous.co.uk