Collection Magazine - Issue 1 - Autumn/Winter 22/23 - Magazine - Page 74
“So when this opportunity came up, I was like, ‘yes! This
is what I want to do.’ I’d previously worked in street food
restaurants and with modern British cuisine, but I think that
Mediterranean style is really what I am — it’s my passion.
When I actually first started cooking here (at Norma), it was
like a flash of cooking back home, using all these Moorish
spices. Sicilian food is very close to Maltese food and there
are loads of influences that sort of overlap.”
Giovann’s Mediterranean influence is evident all over
the Norma menu. “My main priority is obviously keeping
the Sicilian / Moorish theme but putting my touch on
it, and adding everything I’ve learned along the way —
a lot of childhood memories, like cooking with my mum
at home — as well as Maltese and Italian influences. We
have classic dishes, which we adapted for Norma, and
that was a really nice process.”
It’s his memories of being a youngster by his mother’s
side in the kitchen that really seems to have made the most
impact on the chef. “I always knew that I wanted to be a
chef,” Giovann says. “I was always drawn to the kitchen for
some reason or another — I don’t know exactly why — but I
remember [from a young age], I used to cook with my mum.
I was used to seeing my mum cook, as well as my grandma.
So I was always quite sure that this is what I wanted to do.”
In turn, this seems to have inspired in Giovann a
strong understanding of what the philosophy at Norma
should be. “It’s nostalgia, and childhood memories, really
— growing up,” he says, “and obviously that Mediterranean
vibe that binds everything together.”
That vibe is housed in a converted period townhouse
in the heart of London’s Fitzrovia, with Norma split
across three floors. The bottom two are dedicated to the
restaurant — the first floor also boasts a cocktail bar, with
the ground floor featuring a crudo bar by the entrance,
serving up seasonal raw seafood — while the top floor
serves as an intimate private dining space, complete with
an open fireplace.
Classically French trained, Giovann’s gastronomic
education set in stone his passion for perfection in the
kitchen. “Culinary school opened up my mind to a whole
new world — of food, and of using produce on another
level,” he says. It also affirmed a feeling instilled within
him since childhood — that of using quality, seasonal
ingredients in dishes, a philosophy he employs at Norma.
Young Giovann was raised on a farm in Malta not far from
the Kempinski Hotel San Lawrenz — the hotel that, in later
years, would be one of the first places he worked at the
start of his career — and the concept of farm to fork is one
he is therefore very familiar with. He tells of the seeming
culinary equivalent of culture shock that he experienced
when he first moved to London. “I had to go and buy
eggs,” he tells me in disbelief. “That sort of thing was just
strange to me in the beginning, because eggs were just
something that we always had at home on the farm.”
He remains a firm fan of the food he ate as a child on his
family’s farm, with his favourite dish growing up being ravioli,
stuffed with sheep’s cheese and tomato sauce — something
he’s still fond of eating to this day. “When I go home, my mum
is always going to make it for me,” he smiles.
This concept of home comfort cooking is something that
Giovann subscribes to when he’s preparing food in his free
time, with his go-to meal being pasta. “I love cooking pasta —
it’s just something I cook a lot,” he says. “And something that
I also do a lot, that is very easy to make, is torta salata, which
is like a sort of a tart. You can fill it with anything but I usually
have stuff sitting in the fridge, and I just put it together with
ricotta, eggs and sometimes mascarpone. It depends, but you
can play with it — onions, sausages, whatever you want. You
just put everything together, put it in pastry and bake it. It’s
one of my favourite things to do.” I argue that it sounds like
one of those dishes that seems very easy, but the reality is in
fact very different. “It is easy!” Giovann laughs. “It’s one of my
go-to things, so it is definitely easy. Because after cooking all
week at work, sometimes you just need a break.”
“ Culinary school opened up
my mind to a whole new
world of food, and of using
produce on another level.”
NORMA —
72
