Sicilian-born chef Roberto Marotta brings flavours of his homeland to Toronto

18 Jan 2023

对于主厨 Roberto Marotta 来说，这是一见钟情。他现在的妻子兼商业伙伴杰奎琳·尼科西亚 (Jacqueline Nicosia) 在他们相遇时正在西西里岛探亲，他决定追随自己的内心，投身于一种新的文化。 For Chef Roberto Marotta, it was love at first sight. His now wife and business partner Jacqueline Nicosia was visiting family in Sicily when they met, and he decided to follow his heart, and dive into a new culture.

但尼科西亚来自多伦多，她决定搬回她长大的地方，并邀请她的西西里未婚夫和她一起回家。马洛塔从未想过移民加拿大，但愿意投入新的文化和新的生活。 But Nicosia was from Toronto and decided she wanted to move back to where she grew up and invited her Sicilian fiancé to return home with her. Marotta had never thought of immigrating to Canada, but was willing to dive into a new culture and a new life.

“在我的职业生涯中，我一直都非常喜欢冒险。在你尝试之前你永远不会知道生活，而我恋爱了，所以这让一切变得容易，”他说。 “I’ve always been very adventurous in my career. You never know in life until you try and I was in love, so it made it easy,” he says.

他遇到了 9 厘米的地面积雪和 -10 摄氏度的天气。 “这很有趣，”马洛塔说。 “我觉得调整起来会是一个挑战。” He was met with 9 cm of snow on the ground and -10 C weather. “It was interesting,” says Marotta. “I got the feeling it would be a challenge to adjust.”

回到意大利后，马洛塔 (Marotta) 在西西里岛的米拉佐 (Milazzo) 经营着一家成功的水上餐厅，名为“Mood”，专门提供该地区的美食。他想在他的新家多伦多继续分享他对本国美食和文化的热爱。但他现在是从零开始，必须学习这里的农产品、肉类和海鲜的一切知识。 Marotta 知道他必须脚踏实地才能弄清楚餐厅场景是如何运作的，所以他开始为几家餐厅工作。 Back home in Italy, Marotta ran a successful restaurant on the water in Milazzo in Sicily called ‘Mood’ that specialized in the region’s cuisine. He wanted to continue to share his love for his country’s food and culture in his new home, Toronto. But he was now starting from scratch, and was going to have to learn everything about the produce, meats and seafood available here. Knowing he had to get some boots on the ground to figure out how the restaurant scene worked, Marotta began working for a few restaurants.

马洛塔最感兴趣的是多伦多非常不同且非常短暂的赛季。新鲜水果和蔬菜的产季从 6 月初持续到 9 月底，这是一个比 Marotta 在意大利习惯的更集中的生长季节。 The most interesting to Marotta was the very different and very short seasons in Toronto. For fresh fruits and vegetables, the season goes from beginning of June to the end of September, a much more concentrated growing season than what Marotta was used to in Italy.

除了这里新鲜食品的季节性之外，Marotta 对餐厅供应链与他在意大利习惯的供应链有多么不同感到震惊。在西西里岛经营他的餐厅时，马洛塔认识当地的渔民，每天都会在船上与他们会面。 “渔夫、农夫，他们成了你的朋友。”在多伦多，供应链需要更多的物流管理来确保高品质的原料。你不能简单地走到码头去买新鲜的鱼。相反，海鲜是连夜从世界各地空运过来的。这种全球供应餐厅的方式对 Marotta 来说是全新的，他习惯于与产品供应商直接接触。 Aside from the seasonality of fresh foods here, Marotta was struck by how different the restaurant supply chain is from what he was used to in Italy. While running his restaurant in Sicily, Marotta knew local fisherman personally and would meet them at the boat daily. “The fisherman, the farmer, they became your friend.” In Toronto, the supply chain requires a lot more logistics management to ensure high quality ingredients. You cannot simply walk down to the dock to get fresh fish. Instead, seafood is flown overnight from all over the world. This global way of supplying the restaurant was new to Marotta, who was used to having direct personal contact with product suppliers.

马洛塔接手了一些最终失败的合伙企业。 “有些人答应与我合作，开发概念，设计菜单。在我最终决定我不能为其他人做这件事之前，它（失败了）三次，”Marotta 说。他的妻子辞去了工作，两人决定开设自己的餐厅，让马洛塔能够展示他的家乡西西里岛的风味。 Marotta took on a few partnership ventures that ultimately failed. “Some people promised me a partnership, developing the concept, designing the menu. Three times it (failed) before I finally decided I can’t do this for other people,” says Marotta. His wife quit her job and the two decided to open their own restaurant, one that would allow Marotta to showcase the flavours of his homeland, Sicily.

“我儿子三岁。我们刚买了房子。那是一个冒险的时期，但我认为这是正确的做法，”他说。 “My son was three years old. We’d just bought a house. It was a risky time but I think it was the right thing to do,” he says.

Ardo，以 Marotta 的儿子 Leonardo 的名字命名，Leonardo 在蹒跚学步时还不能完全念出自己的全名，自称“Ardo”，于 2016 年开业。餐厅位于多伦多的 King Street 区，靠近 St. Lawrence市场。 Ardo, named after Marotta’s son, Leonardo, who couldn’t quite pronounce his full name as a toddler and called himself “Ardo”, opened in 2016. The restaurant is located in the King Street area of Toronto, close to the St. Lawrence Market.

当 Marotta 努力寻找一些他在家乡习惯使用的优质原料时，他和他的妻子推出了以他们的女儿 Vivienne 命名的 Vivi Imports，将西西里岛的优质原料带到加拿大。这些正宗的西西里产品，如橄榄油、酱汁和巧克力，不仅在他们的餐厅使用，而且在大多伦多地区的高级食品店出售。 When Marotta struggled to find some of the quality ingredients he was used to using back home, he and his wife launched Vivi Imports, named after their daughter Vivienne, to bring fine ingredients from Sicily to Canada. These authentic Sicilian products, such as olive oils, sauces and chocolates, are not only used in their restaurants, but are sold in fine foods stores across the GTA.

马洛塔甚至找到了一种方法来重建他与国内供应商的关系结构。 “我现在与纽芬兰的一位渔民有直接联系。他有三四艘船。他会打电话给我说这是我们抓到的。它将在接下来的 48 小时内到达多伦多。” Marotta 还有一家葡萄牙供应商，他从那里采购海鲜。 “它飞了一夜，”他说。 Marotta has even found a way to recreate the structure of relationships he had with suppliers back home. “I now have direct contact with a fisherman in Newfoundland. He has three or four boats. He’ll call me and say this is what we caught. It will be in Toronto in the next 48 hours.” Marotta also has a Portuguese supplier who he sources seafood from. “It flies overnight,” he says.

从第一天起，公众对 Ardo 开幕的反应是积极的。 “我的很多客户每年都会去意大利旅行几次。他们知道什么是高雅的意大利美食。” The public response to Ardo’s opening has been positive since day one. “A lot of my customers have travelled a couple of times a year to Italy. They have a sense of what elevated Italian cuisine can be.”

Marotta 说他经常受到顾客的欢迎，他们很高兴回到多伦多并看到与他们在意大利拥有的质量水平相同的东西。 Ardo 甚至被评为 Toronto Life 最受欢迎的意大利餐厅之一。 Marotta says he is often greeted by customers who are delighted to return to Toronto and seeing something that has the level of quality of what they had in Italy. Ardo was even named one of Toronto Life’s favourite Italian restaurants.

在 Ardo 取得成功后，Marotta 决定开设第二家餐厅，名为 Dova。该餐厅位于多伦多的 Cabbagetown，于 2020 年 8 月开业。 After the success of Ardo, Marotta decided to open a second restaurant, called Dova. Located in Cabbagetown, Toronto, the restaurant opened in August 2020.

尽管 Marotta 对障碍并不陌生，包括 COVID 推迟了他的第二家餐厅的开业、失败的合伙企业和驾驭新的工作文化，但他将自己的成功归功于他的毅力。 Although Marotta has been no stranger to road blocks including COVID delaying his second restaurant’s opening, failed partnership ventures and navigating a new work culture, he attributes his success to his perseverance.

“当你移民时，当你从另一个地方搬过来时，这将是一个挑战。一切都将是新的和不同的。你必须有一个开放的心态，”他说。 “When you immigrate, when you move from another place, it’s going to be a challenge. Everything is going to be new and different. You have to have an open mind,” he says.

FCGvisa translated, © canadianimmigrant All Rights Reserved.