Stories from Egham High Street – Acquolina in Bocca
Our volunteer Chiara is back after a break with another story from the Egham High street. She has met a new member of our diverse and vibrant community. He is the manager of a new business: Acquolina in bocca restaurant.
On a sunny day we received a visit in our museum at the Literary Institute from Andrea, manager of Acquolina in bocca, who I met in his restaurant while going around to promote one of our events. We had a tour of the museum together and then I invited him to take part in a short interview. He accepted and to have a relaxing time during our chat, we went to a local café on the High Street and talked over a cup of coffee. Andrea is new to Egham, so he doesn’t know the town’s history, but he’s very happy to share his story and why and how he turned up here. He’s very friendly and open so it’s extremely easy for him to talk about himself and I have the feeling of chatting with old friend rather than interviewing someone I still barely know.
He told me about his hometown on the Adriatic coastline and the story of his family who owned for decades a very known and popular restaurant there. Thanks to his long experience in this sector, he has been contacted by a London company that owns various restaurant chains and been proposed a collaboration on a project: “The company wanted to create a new Italian restaurant chain that would not offer the usual stereotyped Italian food, but something more close to the reality of our culinary tradition, with simple and light recipes”.
He told me that this collaboration was initially supposed to be just temporary, until the new brand defined its culinary style, but he has become more involved over time and is now the manager. Together with his business partner Maurizio they built a confident team which includes chefs and waiters and are starting to get known in the town: “Maurizio’s story is very different from mine. When the company started Acquolina in bocca, they needed a manager who knew the territory better. I’m a manager like him, but I don’t have his experience of living in UK, I don’t have his level of English language and I didn’t know any supplier, their systems, neither the IT programs they use here… so they asked someone from the company, one of the best actually, to work with me. We met when we started together, we get on well with each other”. When talking about their beginnings here he admitted “Egham community is welcoming us little by little. It was a bit complicated at the beginning but they were curious about us. At the beginning it was hard maybe because people here are used to a specific stereotype of our food, but we kept doing our work as we wanted to do it, we didn’t accept compromises and now they appreciate our style, and clients come back”.
When I asked “Why Egham?”, he replied: “The choice was not up to me. I even didn’t know that a place called Egham would exist! But the project managers had already identified this place because Hugo’s, which was here before, was owned by a member of the company. I think Hugo’s is missed in the community. Sometimes people come in and ask “Where is Hugo’s? It was here before…” , I know it was very popular with the students“.
Talking about Egham and his impression of the town he says: “My first impression was that of a quiet town, I like very much that it is small and has lots of green around. It seems a happy community. I’ve seen a big mix of people. People is very cordial and friendly. It’s a curious place” and added “What I like the most is definitely quietness, but I think it should be much better connected with transport. If you want to go to London it’s easy to get there by train, but if you want to go in a nearby town, Staines or Slough, by bus is hard. There are few buses and they pass by just every half an hour. I think the town needs a better transport connection”.
At the end, he also revealed to me some plans for the future and how he had the idea: “One day a lady “fell in love” for our home-made bread and asked us to teach her how to do it. We had the idea to organise workshops, to be held every 15 days, probably on a Monday or Tuesday afternoon, for about 20 people. We would teach something different every time, one day bread, another pizza, another one a kind of pasta, like ravioli or lasagne, or a whole recipe. And after that, eating all together while drinking a wine that we combine with the dish. We’ll spend 1 hour together, we’ll teach and learn while we chat about food. This will help us to create a stronger connection with the local community and get to know it better”.
Follow us for the next story from Egham High Street….
(Header photograph: aerial view of the High Street, with thanks to the late local photographer, Fred Parkin)