A Man with a Plan

By Hannah Norman

1 Year Ago

The first time I met Giovann Attard was the day before Norma officially opened in September 2019, and there was a palpable frisson of excitement in the air, not least because columnist Giles Coren had popped in for a pre-opening lunch. Despite the hectic workload naturally demanded by a restaurant opening, not to mention the added pressure of a food critic to impress, Giovann obligingly stepped out from the kitchen to talk to me about the restaurant’s offering, and explain a bit about his journey from his native Malta to Norma.

Fast forward three years and, even despite a pandemic forcing it to temporarily shut its doors, Norma has firmly planted itself on the London gastro scene. Inspired by the food and culture of Sicily, with a particular focus on the Moorish influences found in the island’s cuisine, the restaurant has garnered great acclaim, with its emphasis on celebrating the warmth and charm of old-school Italian hospitality. When the concept of Norma was first touted, Giovann was already known to the Stafford Collection, having worked firstly as a Chef de Partie at The Stafford London hotel when he first came to the UK from Malta, and then for Café Football, working his way up the ranks to become Head Chef — the Café, at that time, being headed up by the Stafford Collection’s Chief Operating Officer, Stuart Procter.

“When the opportunity to work at Norma came up, it was the first time since I’d been in London that I was going to cook this sort of cuisine,” Giovann tells me, from the comfort of Norma’s dining room, rather than the heat of the kitchen. We’re speaking over Zoom — not as a consequence of the pandemic, but rather more due to a lack of alignment in our respective busy diaries. “Back home, I was always cooking Mediterranean cuisine — that’s me, and that’s where and how I grew up,” he explains. “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.”

When he’s not working, Giovann is known for being quite green-fingered, and the last time we spoke, he told me how he’d developed a bit of a passion for growing orchids. Three years down the line, how are his plants doing? “Oh, I do still grow my orchids,” he smiles. “I really do have a lot of orchids.” Anything else he’s tried his hand at? “I’m actually growing pumpkins this year on my balcony, which is insane,” he laughs. “I saved some seeds from the kitchen and I sowed them this year, and they are growing! I do have quite a lot of plants. I think I get that from my mum, because my mum is a massive fan of plants.” He’s also an avid runner. “I’m actually running the London Marathon this year, raising money for Whizz-Kidz,” he tells me, with work constraints meaning he has to be incredibly disciplined with his time. “Everything is timetabled!” he laughs. “I have to keep everything in line otherwise I’ll miss my training, and I can’t do that if I’m training for the Marathon. I think running is my break and my time out — well, that and watering my plants!”

When time allows, Giovann also likes to try new restaurants. “Anything Italian — I always get drawn to anything Italian.” However, does his line of work make him more critical of food when he’s in a restaurant? “I think it’s automatic that you’re a bit more critical, not because you want to criticise, but because you will automatically (start to) think that. I’m not one to complain. I wouldn’t complain — unless I don’t receive my food!” he laughs. “But I understand what it’s like, working in the industry, and I think it would be silly if you don’t have an understanding. So I’m a little bit critical, yes, but without wanting to be!” Giovann’s deep-rooted love of Italian cuisine seemingly extends far beyond trying out new restaurants, which becomes apparent when I ask him where he sees Norma going in the future. “What (I’d love to do) is to open more restaurants that are the same standard and concept as Norma, but with different Italian cuisine. So they’d have that same brand so it’s all intertwined together, but at the same time, each restaurant is unique. Because I think Norma is very unique in what we do — and what we’re doing is great — but that’s the way I see it moving ahead. It’s just a dream of mine, probably, but that’s what I see — with just a bit of variation and a bit of a twist.”

The chef remains incredibly proud of everything he and his brigade are doing at Norma, and everything that they have achieved thus far. “I put my heart and soul into it because it was something I believed in back then (when the restaurant first opened), and believe in still. Very much so,” he says. “As I say, it’s brought me back to my roots, and that is very important to me. I think the best thing about working at Norma is that I have the freedom to create the dishes that I want, and to put what’s in my head onto a plate. I’ve got an amazing team, and they obviously help me a lot; they’re very committed and loyal. But I think that’s the best part — putting what’s in my head onto a plate and actually making people happy with it. Making people happy with the food I cook is my ultimate goal, really. As long as you can make people happy, I think that is it.” Happiness on a plate, from Italy via Malta — it’s worth booking a table at Norma for that experience alone.