Who we are

May 1987. The city is in turmoil, the blue of the flags envelops everything, together with the unanimous cry of celebration, Redemption which an entire population acclaims the conquest of first serie A league by the SSC Naples. And it is in those same moments and under the same sky that my story begins, the last member of two families of merchants active in the very central district of Montesanto. Right here, a stone's throw from one of the oldest and most active markets in the city:
La Pignasecca.
Between a kick at the ball and a shopping delivered, I begin to get passionate about what will become my profession: cooking.
With this dream in mind, the years go by quickly. The training at the Hotellerie School of Bagnoli, the 4 seasons at the Grand Hotel Excelsior Vittoria in Sorrento and then the long wandering around Italy. Sicily, Veneto, Sardinia, Lazio, just some of the stages of the journey that finally made me land in London in 2013. Here Igor Tymchyshyn, Chef-patron of the Orrey Restaurant in Marylebone High Street hires me, marking the beginning of my London career. After three years of work, the homesickness is strong and, so, to the call of the Baglioni Hotels in London I could only answer: Present! I met here Chef Raffaele Lauriola marks a further and important my professional and human growth.
And then we come to 2020. The world stops, bent by the pandemic. I decide to react as I've always done: rolling up my sleeves and moving forward. So a this point I've the idea to open the social page Italian Touch in Surrey and around which immediately gives a lot of satisfaction, untill that point to get a dark kitchen in Hackney on 2024.
And here we are, the rest of the story I would like us to write together, you and I, in the sign of a future that is better for everyone.
Francesco Palumbo