Giovanna Eusebi on creating seasonal menus from family stories

The Eusebi family have had a presence in Glasgow since the 70s, with owner Giovanna Eusebi moving the business from Shettleston to the west end over 10 years ago. Rosalind Erskine spoke to her about how she creates such personal new menus every season.

“The menus have always been personal, but we’ve never really told the stories before,” said Giovanna Eusebi during a busy morning service in her deli and restaurant, Eusebis, in Glasgow’s west end. Her family moved and set up a fruit and vegetable shop in Shettleston in the 1970s, leaving her grandparents in Italy. It’s these grandparents that Giovanna harks back to when starting to think about the next season’s menu. “A lot of the stories, which make up the menus, start with my Italy - my Italy in autumn, summer, as a child, as a young woman, as a mum going back to my grandparents,” she said.

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“They were simple farmers in the south of Italy who grew food biodynamically before that was even a thing, before even organic had a word or title. They very much worked with the seasons, were very frugal and respectful of food as they’d lived through hardship and wars. All of those stories feature at some point in our menus and food. They’ve got to as it’s always been about real food and real people. That’s been my story since I was at Shettleston.

“The only people that made the food then were my mum, dad, an old Italian auntie who was 75 and another old Italian lady who was 100 when she retired from us. It’s always been genuine and it’s all about feeling genuine for me, it has to come from deep inside my DNA and I think people get that when they come here.”

Working with her team and new head chef Kevin McCafferty, Giovanna writes about the inspiration behind the season from her memories of Italy and her family before this is taken, discussed and turned into dishes. For summer these dishes have included a compressed watermelon salad; tuna crudo; mortadella skewers and crab ravioli but as we slowly slide into autumn there are changes afoot with inspiration coming from Giovanna’s grandfather and the grapes he tended to.

She said: “My grandfather’s strip of land - between Lazio and Campania - was where he grew an indigenous grape called Fragola. I have pictures and memories of taking my son as a baby and as an adult, picking grapes, making the wine with him, putting it under the stairs and enjoying the festivals, such as sagra, which is a celebration of sacred or important food.

“What we’ve taken from his inspiration this year is, 27 ago I took a cutting from my grandfather’s vine and brought it back to Scotland. I didn’t think anything would happen but it has now taken over my whole garden and two years ago we actually got grapes that were edible for the first time. So I brought the leaves in, and this is where the chefs come in, and Kevin thought ‘why don’t we dehydrate them and make a beautiful vine salt?’ A Glasgow vine salt that still connects us to my grandfather’s table and land but we’re using it with fish from Scotland.”

It’s this fusion of Scotland and Italy that has been Eusebis hallmark since the beginning, as Giovanna explained: “Italy is 20 regions but 20 different countries almost. It’s so different from north to south; the climate, politics, culture, language, the food. The patchwork quilt of food and dishes is so different wherever you go. We’ve always shown that from day one in Eusebis. It has always been a thing to take people out of their comfort zones of what they thought Italian food was and take them somewhere different. But also you need to have a sense of place. We’re in Scotland and so we weave that Scottish story of great produce through our Italian menu stories as well.”

With over 10 years, you’d think it’d be hard to keep coming up with inspiration or new dishes but Giovanna explained that it’s all about simplicity, saying: “The dishes tend not to repeat. It’s more the ingredients or I might have travelled somewhere or one of the chefs has been somewhere and a small thing - it could be a colour or texture or flavour that can just inspire you for a dish. Italian life is about simplicity. It’s not about homogeneous food, it’s not scientific. This (Eusebis) is about simplicity. But simplicity is about confidence and that comes with knowing your landscape, your story, knowing who you are.”

If you visit the restaurant you’ll be able to read Giovanna’s summer menu story in the Eusebi Estate, which features wonderful pictures of her family as well as Antonio, the ‘hero’ of the season - a tattooed man at the beach where Giovanna and her family visit. The picture was taken by photographer Robbie Mcintosh. Giovanna explained its significance, saying: “We have a photographer in Italy who takes these amazing pictures of real people and our summer hero is a man who has Tutto Passa tattooed across his chest and in Italian that means everything will pass, everything will be ok.

“He’s such an inspiration as he lost his wife and his son but he got this tattooed to remember there is hope. The photographer is incredible and captures, not the cookie cutter dolce vita Italy that people think it is but captures real Italy in a certain part of Naples which is a bit like the Gorbals, if you want to equate it to Glasgow.”

After a busy summer, including the Eusebis huge and glorious strawberry tarts going viral on social media thanks to two influencers; as well as a successful launch in Bonnie & Wild in Edinburgh, the team are already preserving produce and preparing for the colder months. And with them, the next chapter in Giovanna’s stories, which will no doubt translate into comforting and inspiring dishes.