United Kingdom
Sicily and Tuscany, brought to your own kitchen in London and across the UK — for a few days.
Plan your staySome people ask me: why wait for summer, for a flight, for packed suitcases, when what you're looking for is already written into my story — the garlic that softens slowly in the pan, the bread that's torn rather than sliced, the scent of the olive grove that reaches you before the plate does?
So I come to you. I come to London, if that's where you live — I bring with me the flavours of my family's kitchen, the ragù that simmers for hours, the caponata that tastes of home even in Notting Hill or Chelsea. And I come wherever else in the UK you happen to be — a house by the sea, a city in the north, a village nobody's heard of outside it. For four or five days your kitchen becomes mine, and mine becomes, for a while, your own private trattoria.
I'm Francesco Maria Aricò, and Trattoria Privata is my way of carrying home-style cooking beyond home. I have roots in Sicily and in Tuscany, and I learned to cook in a family kitchen, not a restaurant one — nothing exotic, nothing theatrical, just the real thing, wherever you happen to live.
I don't arrive with a catering van. I arrive with a handwritten shopping list and the wish to choose the best ingredients together with you, wherever your local market can offer them — the fish of the day, seasonal vegetables, that cheese you perhaps didn't even know was sold around the corner. If you'd like, we cook side by side: I'll tell you why a soffritto is built this way and no other, why a tomato is peeled rather than chopped with its skin on, why certain recipes are only ever passed down by voice, never written.
For a few days, in your kitchen in London or anywhere else in the UK, a small piece of Sicily and Tuscany arrives — not in a suitcase, but in a pair of hands.
Shared market shopping and all ingredients for the stay. Full preparation and cooking, four or five consecutive days, one evening meal a day (breakfast can be added on request). Menu planning together before I arrive. The kitchen left as I found it, every evening.
A working kitchen with a hob, oven and running water. Accommodation for me nearby, or a spare room if you have one — we agree on this together before I confirm the dates. Everything else, I take care of.
Because the stay involves flights and planning across several days, I ask for at least three to four weeks' notice — more if you have a specific window of dates in mind. Write to me anyway if your timing is tighter; I'll tell you honestly if it can work.
London is my natural starting point, being the easiest to reach. But it isn't the only place — I go wherever in the UK a stay takes me, city or countryside. Write to me with where you are, and I'll tell you honestly if it works.
Tell me where you are, when, and how many of you there'll be. I'll take care of the rest.
Write to meIf you'd like to read how other evenings went, the reviews are on Google.