Italy produces the best hospitality professionals in the world. The French? Exceptional, but the Italians clinch it for me, because they take themselves less seriously.
And the volume! There are more than 7,000 Italian restaurants in the UK, after all. In February this year, there were 246,000 UK web searches for “Italian restaurant” – second only to Indian.
For 100 years, Italian nationals have helped to build, cultivate and safeguard Britain’s restaurant industry, stirring risotto in Soho and introducing thousands to the simple pleasure of a negroni. Prosecco is mostly disgusting but it is an affordable provision loved by millions each year.
And pretty much every British town has a passable, if inoffensive local restaurant, one with a ragu thrust chaotically through pappardelle and where a shot of limoncello arrives – free of charge – at the end of the meal.
But so many Italian chefs, waiters, sommeliers and concierges are soon to leave. Why? Our government is committing another riotous act of self-harm: new regulation means the minimum salary threshold for a skilled work visa is increasing from £26,000 to £38,700. This will leave so many in entry and mid-level roles with no choice but to up sticks and leave.
Last week, the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica published the headline “Goodbye London”, proclaiming the new legislation exclusive, even demeaning, with typical Latin gusto.
And not only will the heightened salary threshold force many back, it will also disallow the next generation of adventurers: the average salary for a hospitality worker in Britain is currently around £26,000.
“A young Italian with initiative, the will to work and curiosity could once say ‘I’ll go to London’ – a fantastic city for the young which practically invented music, fashion and style,” Italian commentator Antonio Polito wrote in Corriere della Sera. Not any more.
Italian immigration to the UK dates back to Roman times. Lombard Street in London is a riff on Lombardy, given it was home to so many Italian bankers in the 14th century.
In more recent times, we can trace widespread movement to London, Bedford, Manchester, Glasgow, as thousands arrived pre- and post-war. There are 500,000 Italians in London today, which is more than Bologna, the city that bore your favourite midweek meal.
My paternal family was among those who arrived in the middle of the last century and, like so many others, most worked in hospitality – at the bars, clubs and restaurants that help keep this country in food and drink.
In the 1960s, when Sophia Loren was in town, it would be my nonna’s father she would call for a plate of pasta. He was based at the Savoy at the time. Today we might take excellent pizza and fine bottles of chianti for granted.
And so it is sad and diminishing that our government is now effectively telling an important community it is no longer wanted. That such skills as cooking, recommending wine and creating a joyous buzz to be enjoyed of an evening are considered unnecessary or unremarkable.
The political decision is all the more disquieting considering the shortfall in hospitality workers in Britain. Today it is around 120,000. Find me an unemployed pizzaiolo, or a spare chef who can fold enough tortellini to feed a ravenous 100 covers on a Friday night.
Reports have said about 90% of the near-9,000 migrants recruited in hospitality last year would not qualify under the new rules. This latest move by the government is shameful. It is regressive. It is a failure to understand or quantify an entire sector – our third largest.
To be without food and drink is to live without meaning. We are spiralling toward an upsettingly hungry and thirsty demise.
