SABRINA GIDDA

The Bernardi’s chef explains her fresh approach to Italian food

Born in Wolverhampton, raised on her mother’s Punjabi cooking and with no formal training, Gidda appears an unlikely candidate to be heading the kitchen at one of London’s most exciting Italian restaurants. But it’s exactly this background that is injecting flair into a cuisine which is usually a slave to tradition.

‘Because I don’t have Italian family, I don’t have to cook the way my grandmother taught me,’ she says. ‘I can touch on the heritage while cooking in my own free way.’

‘At the moment I’m serving vitello tonnato using Cumbrian rose veal with parsley, caper and red onion salad, instead of the traditional tuna sauce. I try to take British ingredients, pair them with Italian methods and cook to bring out the best in the produce.’

One of the key trends of the past 12 months has been an interest in region-specific cooking. ‘People are aware of the subtle differences in flavours and techniques, in the same way as they are with Indian food,’ she says. So which region is her favourite? ‘It has to be Sicily. It was colonised by both the Greeks and Arabs and you can taste this in the mixing of sweet and sour, as well as the use of vinegar and raisins. You’re going to see a lot more of it on menus.’