A Word In Private

Commonly billed as the greatest chef in Poland, we join Nuta’s Andrea Camastra to hear the topics on his mind…

In Nuta, food is awarded a sense of ceremony becoming, almost, a hallowed form of art – it is to be marvelled at, discreetly photographed, savoured, and then, finally, its nuances discussed around the table. Expressive in its aesthetics and flavour, it is the personification of Andrea Camastra’s character – an extension of him. Increasingly outspoken, yet always playful and charismatic, this is a chef whose effervescence naturally captivates all those in his presence.

You see this during service as he flits around tables or calls into his kitchen. It’s a part he plays well, excelling and revelling in the role of animated firebrand. But this is not some crowd-pleasing act, and that becomes apparent when you catch the chef after service sitting with his guests or, even better, when he’s at his most revealing: smoking a cigarette outside his personal domain.

“I’m frustrated,” he says during one such break. “I’m frustrated that all I’m hearing about nowadays from restaurants operating in the ‘fine dining’ sector is that they can’t sustain their success any longer because of costs. Well I tell you what, noone forced them to hire 100 people. When they were winning stars and other awards, they weren’t complaining, but now all of a sudden they think it’s a problem.”

For Camastra, these places have brought trouble upon themselves. “If you think you need a massive staff to achieve a certain level, then fair enough, but noone is telling you that it’s required. It’s not like Michelin issue guidelines about how many people you should employ –in this industry, you set your own rules.”

Certainly, Nuta have chosen a light-footed approach. “I’ve got eight boys in the kitchen, two dishwashers, and five or six people on the floor. With office staff, there’s only around 20 people and yet we operate at the very highest level. True, I’m not going to sugar-coat it, I had to sack 200 idiots before getting the right team, but that’s to be expected before you find a unit that you can really call your family.”

Finding this blend has been fundamental to Nuta’s soaring success. “I don’t have many rules, but I do expect people to show commitment, respect, care, love, and passion. I don’t care about someone’s CV, as long as they have the above qualities then I know that they’re not going to cut corners or skip responsibility. When you choose people for their personality, you achieve harmony. Everyone I’ve got here, they’re strong people, and they care for this place as if it were their own.”

Cutting his teeth in the old school, Camastra’s first kitchen job came at the age of 11. “It was a spartan restaurant in Puglia that was serving 1,000 people per day, but it was there that I learned how to open raw seafood,” he says. “Kitchens back then were brutal places, some- times physically abusive, but while that was wrong I think we’ve gone to another extreme that’s also not right.”

Railing against the sensitivities of the modern world, Camastra is damning in his indictment. “People have got lazier and lazier while getting louder about stress –but guess what, if you’ve got a passion for what you do then you don’t care about that. You know from the outset what the job involves, so it’s crazy to complain about the hours or the money or whatever else. If you want something, you need to make sacrifices, not sit around moaning.”

All of this, he theorises, is symptomatic of the times. “Never before have we had such a moment in history where so many people have become famous just for showing their tits.” Clearly, it is something that

Camastra has little patience for, espousing as he does ethics of hard work. “I’ve been told I’m temperamental, but I think what I do works,” he says. “Look at the kitchen here – all of these people have worked with me for nine years. We’ve become a bunch of friends. A proper family.”

These are not mere words. Although often fantastically innovative in its food, this is a restaurant run on traditional values that have bred trust, friendship and human connection. “Of course I’m glad when guests tell me that we’ve taken them on an incredible journey, but one of the biggest complements we can receive is when people notice that the team here are so cool. I’m glad because none of that is an act – we’re close friends who are united by our dedication.”