Originally Published: 2002-09-01

Antonio Cardone

NEWCASTLE (United Kingdom) — The owner of the mine at Ingurtosu, some 40 km from Cagliari was a British baron, Lord Armstrong, who also owned some mines in northern Britain. When the governments in London and Rome struck the deal allowing Italian labourers to enter the British economy, Lord Armstrong offered his Sardinian employees the chance to do their mining job in Wales.
“My brother-in-law,” says Adriano Addis, “jumped at the offer and left with my sister. He began working as a miner, but on the weekend he helped a friend of his who had a restaurant. When, a couple of years later, the friend decided to get rid of the restaurant, my brother-in-law bought it and started calling my elder siblings to come and help him. Our family is quite large, with eight brothers and two sisters, so labour was not lacking. Well, that’s how our story began.”
And how does it continue?
“In the early Seventies, half of my family was in Britain and the other half in Sardinia,” says Addis. “Then my mother told my sister, the one who had come first with her husband: ‘Our family must stay united: either all in Sardinia or all in Britain.’ To make a long story short, we all moved to Britain, first in Middlesbrough, then in Newcastle. That’s when I came too, at 15, with my 60-year-old mother and 62-year-old father. They were really brave, starting anew at their age.”
Nowadays, British newspapers call the Addis family ‘restaurant’s artistic dynasty’. Adriano, the head of this dynasty, smiles. “I think this is an exaggeration, but there is some truth in it,” he says. “Today we own 14 upscale restaurants in a 40-mile radius in north-eastern England: five are mine, the rest belong to my brothers and nephews. We all share, in addition to family bonds, also a commitment to quality food. If we serve an Italian dish, especially Sardinian specialities, be assured that they are truly Italian and Sardinian, not fancy mixtures of ingredients. This was what conquered the Britons.”
And Britons, especially those of the upper and middle classes, crowd (one needs to book at least one week in advance) the sophisticated “Da Vinci’s” in Newcastle, the flagship restaurant of the chain led by Adriano Addis.

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