TINO Rossi, who died on 29 May at the age of 91, was one of a number of young Italians who came to Jersey in the 1950s and 1960s to work in hotels and restaurants, and who, having started their careers as commis waiters, went on to become successful restaurateurs.
Through sheer hard work and determination they created some of the most popular establishments in the Island and helped to lay the foundations of Jersey’s reputation as a fine-dining destination.
For nearly 60 years Mr Rossi ran La Capannina restaurant in Halkett Place, continuing to be at the restaurant to welcome patrons until very shortly before his death, long after many of his contemporaries had retired or passed away.
He was always the public face of La Capannina and many of his regular patrons would simply say they were “going to Tino’s” when referring to the restaurant.
Valentino Rossi was born in the village of Montereale Valcellina in the Friuli region of north-eastern Italy on 22 September 1934, the son of Enrico and Pierina Rossi.
He had one sister, Luigia. His father was a supporter of the Communist Party and, during the years when Mussolini was in power, the family often faced prejudice from supporters of the fascist regime.
Mr Rossi recalled an occasion when he was due to go on a school trip to the coast, somewhere he had never been, only to be turned away at the last minute by a local official who told his father that they did not want his type on the excursion bus.
Mr Rossi left school at the age of 14 and, knowing that it would be hard to find employment in his isolated village, decided to seek work further afield.
Many others from his village had already done this and, through contacts with former villagers, he tried to find the best openings in the hotel industry to start his career.
He initially worked in Tarvisio, near the Austrian border, and subsequently spent time working in prestigious hotels in some of the leading resorts across Europe including in Venice and Florence and, in the winter, St Moritz and Montreux.
At the time these hotels still attracted royalty, film stars, and aristocrats from across the world and, at a young age, he found himself dealing with many famous people.
Some could be particularly demanding and he later recalled how King Farouk of Egypt, who seemed to spend much of his life in top European hotels, required the kitchen and serving staff to be on standby 24 hours a day.
Speaking to former BBC Radio Jersey broadcaster Hamish-Marett-Crosby for his 2017 book “Italy’s Other Island”, Mr Rossi recounted one particularly embarrassing incident with a serving tray he was taking to the King: “I tripped over a thick rug that someone had put in the middle of the room since I had last been there. So that was another useful lesson to add to my list. Try very hard not to fall over with a tray of food more than once in front of King Farouk.”
After gaining experience in a number of different locations, Mr Rossi’s early career was interrupted by the requirement for him to undertake 18 months of military service.
He served with the Alpini, the Alpine Corps of the Italian Army.
He spent time in the mountainous region near the Yugoslav border but, because of his previous catering experience, he was also called on to assist in the officers’ mess.
The Alpini had a strong tradition of singing and playing traditional mountain songs and Mr Rossi, who had learnt to play the accordion as a young man, enjoyed listening to these for the rest of his life.
Many of the young Italians working in the hotel or restaurant industry recognised that the ability to speak English would greatly help their progression and Mr Rossi worked for a time in the Isle of Man and at the Dorchester Hotel in London.
Employment in Jersey was also a particularly attractive option, as seasonal work permits could be obtained from the age of 18.
At the time, the teams of waiters and other serving staff working in large hotels and restaurants were organised in “brigades” under the supervision of the maître d’hôtel.
Hoteliers knew that, if they could find a reliable maître, he would be able to recruit a team of dependable workers to train and manage without the need for undue interference.
When Mr Rossi started out in his career, the choice of maître was as important as the choice of hotel.
“You would try very hard to get into the best brigade you could find and that meant applying to the best maître d’hôtel you could approach” he later said.
“And the better, the more elite, the brigade that you could find meant that you had greater opportunities to advance and improve your prospects”.
Under the brigade system there was a rigid hierarchy and it was necessary to work through the system over a number of years before, perhaps, eventually progressing to the position of sommelier or head waiter.
When Mr Rossi first came to Jersey in the 1950s to work at the Hotel l’Horizon his work permit was issued in the name of the hotel, but he considered that he was, in practice, employed by the maître d’hôtel, Giuseppe Panigarda, who ran the brigade.
Over a number of years Mr Rossi worked at a variety of establishments, including the Dolphin in Gorey and the Star restaurant near the Weighbridge.
He gradually gained experience and progressed to more senior positions in the brigades, ending up as head waiter for some four years at the Lobster Pot at L’Etacq.
In June 1966 Mr Rossi took the bold step of setting up his own restaurant, La Capannina.
Together with his then business partner, Mr Bianci, he leased premises at 67 Halkett Place which had previously been run as the Hong Kong Chinese restaurant.
Mr Rossi had first met his future wife, Ida Dalla Pozza, when they were both working in the same hotel in Montreux and the couple were married in Italy in 1961. They had two children, Alan and Vicky.
Mr and Mrs Rossi worked together at the Lobster Pot and, after the opening of La Capannina, Mrs Rossi played a key role in the running of the restaurant, including working as a sous-chef preparing starters and desserts, taking responsibly for the decoration and doing much of the paperwork.
She would also stand in for Mr Rossi to welcome patrons when he was away.
From the outset, Mr Rossi was keen to introduce his patrons to high-quality dishes at a time when many people in Jersey still thought that Italian food consisted solely of pizza and spaghetti.
He introduced Islanders to a whole new range of dishes that, at the time, were quite unknown in Jersey.
These included carpaccio, served with olive oil and slices of Alba truffles, homemade black taglioni pasta, coloured with squid’s ink, and wild boar ham.
In the early days he had considerable difficulty sourcing the necessary ingredients and was obliged to bring many in from Covent Garden and even Genoa.
Speaking in 1999 he explained how attitudes to food had changed since he first arrived in the Island.
“When I came here, Jersey was very insular about food. Olive oil, for example; the average person would have to buy tiny little bottles from the chemist. It was treated as a medicinal product. Only foreigners used it for cooking. And garlic, heavens above, garlic was seen as the ultimate in social unacceptability – again it was reserved for foreigners,” he recalled.
Alongside the warm welcome, the emphasis was also on an element of theatre in front of the customers, whether through a flambé, a steak tartare mixed at the table, the carving trolley with the roast of the day or the creation of a zabaglione for dessert.
At the end of a meal, a highlight for many diners was the sweet trolley, wheeled to the table laden with a whole range of desserts such as millefeuilles, tiramisu or fresh fruit salad.
Mr Rossi soon built up a regular clientele and the restaurant became a popular meeting place for bankers, lawyers and States Members, with many business deals concluded over a long lunch.
As the years passed, he saw generations of the same families coming to dine.
“It was not too long ago that I was asked to the christening of the granddaughter of a couple who celebrated their engagement in my restaurant back in the 60s,” he recalled in 1999.
“Three generations of custom, that’s something to be proud of”.
As well as employing experienced staff, Mr Rossi made considerable efforts to train young people. In 1980, the JEP reported how he had employed 16-year-old David Gibaut straight from Highlands College, where he had completed a one-year catering course.
Over a four-year period Mr Rossi sent him to gain experience in some of the most prestigious restaurants in Europe, including in Rome, Genoa and Milan.
“I think it is vital that we try to encourage more young people to take up catering,” Mr Rossi said at the time.
“I am always willing to encourage Jersey youngsters who show an interest in getting to the very top.”
For a number of years from 1974 Mr Rossi ran an Italian week, usually in November, when he brought a visiting chef to the Island to showcase Italian cuisine, preparing or finishing some dishes in front of the customers.
Although many of Mr Rossi’s customers returned regularly, none were perhaps more frequent diners than the late Harry Patterson, better known as author Jack Higgins.
He was often in the restaurant for lunch and dinner and would frequently be seen writing his next novel at a table in the corner.
“They keep a special table for me,” he said.
“It’s an honourable way of writing a book. Hemingway used to write in a restaurant in Paris. I’m lucky that the music and the people chattering don’t bother me in the slightest.”
Mr Rossi always went out of his way to make his customers feel welcome and got to know the preferences of his regulars, such as which table they preferred, any dishes they particularly liked and even small details such as whether they wanted glasses for water on the table.
One incident, when he had to refuse entry, nevertheless stood out in his memory. Fanny Cradock, well-known as a TV chef in the 1960s and early 1970s, had dined at the restaurant and written what Mr Rossi considered to be an unnecessarily rude and personal article about him and his staff.
“Criticism I can take any day,” he said.
“Personal insults to me are one thing, but to my staff, that goes beyond what is acceptable.”
A few months later Mrs Cradock arrived at the restaurant looking for a table when it was already fully booked.
“I very politely suggested that, as she didn’t like the restaurant and as she found my staff unacceptable, she might like to eat elsewhere,” he recalled.
“After the usual ‘do you know who I am?’, she said: ‘The man’s impertinent,’ and stormed out. I was worried about what I had done, but only for a moment, as the whole restaurant burst into spontaneous applause.”
Alongside many of his fellow Italian restaurateurs, Mr Rossi was very active in the local branch of the Associazione Maître Italiani Ristoranti e Alberghi (Amira).
The association organised many events in the Island to showcase Italian cuisine and Mr Rossi also took part in several Amira trips to Italy.
In 1989 La Capannina was awarded the title Locale del Cravattino d’Oro (“Golden Bow Tie”) by AMIRA International, one of only a small number of establishments outside Italy to be given this accolade.
The Association also bestowed the title Grand Maestro della Ristorazione on Mr Rossi himself.
In 2013 his work was recognised by the Italian state when he was awarded the Capo di Stato, an award made by the Italian President to people who have reached the top of their profession and remained there for many years.
He was presented with the award by the Italian Consul in Jersey, Renzo Martin, who explained that it had a similar status in Italy to an Order of the British Empire award.
“Mr Rossi has done so much for the Island,” he said.
“People like him are the original restaurateurs. Tino has been here for 50 years and his restaurant is still renowned as one of the best in the Channel Islands.”
Despite an extremely busy and demanding work life, Mr Rossi nevertheless found time to play tennis and, later in life, golf. He enjoyed taking his car to France and Italy, often combining a road trip with visits to suppliers to source ingredients for the restaurant.
Apart from extending into the neighbouring premises in the late 1970s, Mr Rossi ran La Capannina in a similar manner for nearly 60 years.
It was therefore inevitable that some reviewers occasionally criticised him for not following modern trends.
He nevertheless took that criticism as a compliment: “If you mean that I am being criticised for insisting on professional staff who know what they are doing and have the traditional skills and expertise, that’s fine by me,” he commented.
“If being unfashionable means I have a game trolley in the season with a selection of the best game flown in, then roasted and carved in the traditional way, fine. I want my restaurant staff to know how to fillet a fish, how to carve a saddle of lamb and wild birds.
“I want them to place vegetables on a plate artistically without using their hands, and what is more important, so do my customers. I still view plate service as a downgrading of skills.”
Mr Rossi’s wife, Ida, passed away in October 2024. He is survived by his son, Alan, his daughter, Vicky, and granddaughter Luna. To them, and the members of his wider family, the JEP extends its sympathy.
MdlH
