21 hours ago
10
Giovanni’s on The Hayes, 38 The Hayes, Cardiff CF10 1AJ (029 2022 0077;
giovanniscardiff.co.uk). Starters from £4.55; pizza from £12.55; mains from £14.95; desserts from £7.30; wines from £28
Places from your childhood age slower than you do. Giovanni’s is a family-run Italian restaurant in the centre of Cardiff. While most of the landmarks of my childhood have gone or become other things, Giovanni’s has been there for more than 40 years. It’s where, in a training bra and polyester dress, I’d come to celebrate family birthdays and exam results. It’s where men with cigarette breath would ask me to do a twirl, as my mum looked on proudly. It’s where I first saw my dad drunk – we had come to collect him after a work do, because he was too pissed to get home. At the door, as I watched Mum help him stand up, I felt like Lisa in The Simpsons looking into Moe’s. That was the last time I was here.
Today, the only difference is that my feet touch the ground and there is a 55in TV on the wall showing videos on mute of a chef demonstrating how they cook their steak (in a pan, with oil). This chef is the eponymous Giovanni, the longest-serving restaurateur in Cardiff. He silently mouths seasoning instructions into the camera as if to say, “Unlike Miss Selfridge, I’m real.” As the onscreen steak sears, my dinner guest (a vegan) goes limp.
Everything else is the same. The same smell of wine and hot tomatoes. The same sound of dressed-up families ignoring each other. And the same laminated menus. I last held this menu with small fingers and now, with older hands, I think of my younger self and all the things that hadn’t happened to me yet, that I didn’t know were coming. Back then, I thought my parents would live forever. I’d do anything to have one more dinner together, ignoring them.
Tonight, Giovanni is offsite. He must be editing his videos. Our drinks order is taken by a charming waiter in a black shirt. I order chianti, because I can pronounce it, and the vegan (who is teetotal, too) orders a Virgin Sex On The Beach. My wine tastes of leather and mushrooms, and gives me a squiggly feeling behind my eyes. The vegan’s drink has half a whole lime floating in it; he says it tastes of the cancelled soft drink Um Bongo. A techno remix of Happy Birthday is played through the speakers, and the waiter delivers a slice of cake with a candle to a nearby table.
Then he returns to take our food order. “I’m vegan,” says the vegan. The waiter says, “I don’t like you,” then turns to me and smiles. We all laugh too hard with our mouths open, in case he means it. On the screen behind, Giovanni cuts the head off a fish.
I order the minestrone soup for my starter. When it arrives, it is the colour of the soup that was thrown at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, and it smells like a forest floor. It has wads of carrot and potato and whole cherry tomatoes. As I put my spoon in, oil comes loose and pools at the side of the bowl. It tastes nutty and beefy, and the rough-hewn chunks of vegetable are earthy. I imagine this is how a medieval stew tasted, and I wonder whether Giovanni found the recipe in the margins of an illuminated manuscript. It sits in my stomach like lukewarm tea. The vegan has bruschetta and says it tastes “tomatoey”.
As we wait for the main course, I take in the faux-brickwork wallpaper. On each paper brick is hung a photo of Giovanni with a celebrity who has eaten here. I recognise Tom Jones, Ed Sheeran and Dawn French. Princess Diana, in a white power suit, throws her head back in laughter at a man in tinted glasses. As if she hadn’t been through enough. Some photos are signed with messages of gratitude to “Gio”. Some are of faces I don’t recognise (sports people) and some have a helpful description of their subject’s credentials (“from Casualty”). Giovanni grins out from them all. He looks a bit like when one of Greek mythology’s Four Winds is personified in a painting. He ages across the photos as the X Factor contestants come and go. This gallery charts a restaurateur’s life. Near the window, the photos are bleached from the sun.
Our main course arrives. My spaghetti carbonara is the size of two dinners. At home, I cook my pasta to the softness of yoghurt, so I don’t expect the spaghetti to “catch” as I bite through it. The sauce is salty and creamy and has the consistency of Crème de la Mer. Growing up, Mum only made carbonara with low-fat sauce, so I still fetishise the taste of fat. In the feminist utopia, I will eat this three times a day. I fantasise how it will taste even better cold tomorrow, when the fat has congealed. The vegan has something with peppers in it. We share a side of spinach in olive oil, which tastes like the olive oil you’d get in a hamper at Christmas. I get full quickly, so eat a-dinner-and-a-half’s worth of my meal and smear the remaining half round my plate to make it look like less. I want to remain the waiter’s favourite.
For dessert, I have a white-chocolate and pistachio cheesecake. It arrives on a plate the dimensions of an iPad. Pistachios are crumbled on top, and green sauce has been drizzled in the shape of the lacing on the back of a corset. The base tastes like the free biscuits you get in posh hotels. I eat the whole thing. This dish is the highlight of the meal.
My cup of tea comes with a shot of milk, like a Jägerbomb, so I ask for three more shots. I get my taste for milky tea from my nan. Her catchphrase was, “Let’s put some tea in that milk.” The vegan asks for an oat latte and the waiter pretends not to hear.
As the waiter brings the bill, my eyes go over his shoulder to the TV behind his head. There is another person onscreen now, cooking alongside Giovanni. This new figure gesticulates in a familiar way and I realise it is our waiter, 10 years younger. His eyes onscreen are brighter and his hands are smoother as they stroke a fish. I want the screen to show my family and how things used to be. I want to grab the waiter’s arm and say, “Where have they gone? They were just here. Sitting right here.” I wonder if he will turn around and see himself.
