Antonio Carluccio: 'Godfather' of Italian food, TV presenter and high street chain restaurateur

Famed as the man who was instrumental in changing the face of Italian dining in Britain, Antonio Carluccio was known for his self-named high-street chain restaurants that bore his classic home style of Italian cooking which earned him the title as the godfather of Italian cuisine.

He championed Italian food and worked in the industry for more than 50 years, where mushrooms, root vegetables and foraging ruled with a focus on simple recipes passed down through families, which cemented his trademark phrase,” MOF MOF” – minimum of fuss, maximum of flavour.

As the brand ambassador for Cirio, the Tuscan chopped tomatoes, he’s attributed as being responsible for a rise in British people demanding more genuine Italian products.

He’s also the author of more than 20 cookery books; his most recent was Vegetables, published last October, but was reprinted again this year. He also wrote Antonio Carluccio’s Pasta in 2014, My Kitchen Table in 2011 and The Complete Mushrooms Book in 2001.

Born in the rural village of Vietri sul Mare, Salerno on 19 April 1937 Antonio Carluccio was one of seven children. His father was a station master which led the family to move to different areas in the north west region of Piedmont. One of his earliest memories is seeing his father return to the station platform and running home to tell his mother boil the pasta.

Inspired by his surroundings, Carluccio spent time foraging for mushrooms with his father and learned recipes from his mother. But he did not immediately follow his childhood heart and enter into the food world. After completing his compulsory year serving in the Italian Navy, he worked as a journalist in Turin at the daily newspaper La Stampa (The Press).

At the age of 21, he moved to Vienna, following the death of his young brother Enrico, to study language. It was not until 1975, at the age of 38 that he moved to the UK – after a stint of living in Germany from 1962-75, where he married a woman and divorced seven years later. During the Seventies in England, Italian food was still in its primitive years (he described the Italian food he ate in London as awful) and French cuisine reigned. His first job here was working as a wine merchant – using his local knowledge and importing Italian wines – which is how he met his wife, Priscilla Conran, sister of Terence Conran and aunt to Jasper Conran, who he married in 1980.

In 1981, the pair opened the Neal Street restaurant in Covent Garden. It traded for 26 years and is where Jamie Oliver is said to have learnt his trade. In the same year, he was also the runner up in the Sunday Times Cook of the Year, which his wife encouraged him to enter.

It was around this time he moved onto our television screens, appearing on the BBC’s Food and Drink Programme, where he also garnered his own programmed Antonio Carluccio’s Italian Feasts in 1996. Two years later, he was appointed Commendatore by the Italian government in 1998 – the equivalent of a knighthood in the UK.

But his glory years were only just beginning as in 1999, he co-founded the Carluccios chain. It’s become a reliable part of the high street, recognisable for its royal blue and white sign, windows full of delicatessen goodies to lure you in. Despite being started by the Italian, it’s a legacy that has made the restaurant one of the UK’s most successful brands and helped push Italian restaurants and imported produce to one of the country’s firm favourites alongside Indian food. But in 2005, he sold the chain for a reported £10m, only to be invited back onto the board as a consultant in 2009.

However, in 2008 Carluccio had reportedly stabbed himself in the chest in his Fulham flat and was taken to Chelsea and Westminster hospital. Following this, he admitted himself into The Priory clinic due to exhaustion where he received therapy. He denied it was self-harm and in an interview the following year he said it was an accident while cutting a loaf of bread. But he had previously said he suffered with depression, which losing the chain had exacerbated along with divorcing his wife of 28 years in the same year.

But the incident did not put an end to his cooking or celebrity chef status.

His most recent – and most well-known – TV series was Two Greedy Italians in 2011 with friend and fellow Italian chef Gennaro Contaldo (with who he made amends with after a long-held grudge) as they returned to Italy together more than 40 years after leaving their home country.

In 2012, the chef was awarded the AA Hospitality Lifetime Achievement award as well as an OBE in 2007.

Antonio Carluccio, Italian chef and restaurateur, born 19 April, 1937, died 8 November, 2017