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The customers: The world and his wife: hookers, plain-clothes policeman, numerous actors (Ewan McGregor during rehearsals for Guys And Dolls). My favourite customers were the builders – as long as you gave them a big plate they were happy,” she says. Nina still remembers where comedian and singer Harry Secombe sat when he tipped her after a fried breakfast. “The Kray brothers used to go there too,” Nina adds more warily. “When you read the terrible things they did it’s a surprise. They were charming – you wouldn’t think butter would melt.” There are also framed photos of Nina’s parents meeting the Pope, socialising with champion boxer and Question of Sport TV star Henry Cooper (who “married an Italian girl”) and family snaps of her daughters, Lisa and Rita, and the grandchildren Leo and Rosa.
When it was quieter I’d start preparing for the next day. I loved to go to the meat market (at Spitalfields) as the chaps made a fuss of me. There was no nastiness. I used to drive down and then had to give a two and six tip*. I was 17 when I took my driving test, and only 18 when I drove my mother to Italy. My dad had such confidence in me.” Here she laughs, adding, “To be truthful there wasn’t the traffic. Driving was great fun – once a week I used to drive Mum to the West End, park the car, and we’d go shopping!” Closed and boarded up for two years, Alfredo's caff (a north London institution since the 1920s), looked like a gonner. Then it was bought by the Sausage & Mash micro chain and after a meticulous restoration was born again - complete with Alfredo-style cafe decor (steel-trimmed blue laminate tables, bent-wood chairs, original Vitrolite signs, white china mugs, glass-globe lamps), and classic British comfort food. It's posher and pricier than the average greasy spoon but it has the classic hallmarks (ketchup, mushy peas, crumble and custard), plus proper mash, gourmet sausages, and pinot grigio.
Despite being an early car fan, Nina and her husband are now carless. “We’ve got bus passes, save on insurance and can always catch a cab,” she says practically – showing the insight that led to classic Italian dishes – spaghetti bolognese and minestrone – being added to Alfredo’s menu because “It’s what I thought English people would have a go at.” Vanilla ice cream/gelato– Alfonzo had a place over the road where he kept his ice cream making equipment. The customers: Media types, insomniacs, actor Rupert Everett (occasionally), members of the Bar Italia scooter club. Run by Nevio Pellicci (who was born on the premises, 79 years ago), this unpretentious East End gaff is a true classic - a glorious post-war original (founded in 1900; furnished in 1946), now preserved for posterity by a recent Grade II listing. According to English Heritage, the place is a vision of "custard yellow Vitrolite", Univers steel lettering, and "rich deco-style marquetry panelling". As well as Maria Pellicci's home-made grub (pastas, puddings, piles of real chips), it offers sepia-print family portraits of pre-war Pellicci's, real East End banter ("did you want gravy with your liver, Reg?") and an impressive visitors book boasting a life-time of Pellicci enthusiasts from the Kray twins to Robbie Williams. The customers: Stand-up comedian Dave Gorman, taxi drivers, market traders, half the cast of EastEnders.
If you’d like to feature on this blog, or make a suggestion about anyone who grew up, lives or works in Islington please let me know, via [email protected]. Thank you.When I was a little girl Islington was a right dump. If people asked you where you came from you’d say very quietly ‘Islington’,” says Nina. “ Now I’m quite proud to say I come from Islington.” Once it was safe to come home to Islington Nina went to school at St John’s the Evangelist in Duncan Terrace. “I loved it,” she says. “I wanted to go to the school my brothers were at, Brompton Oratory, but mother said it was too far for a girl. What could I do? It’s not like now. You had to do what your parents said.” The result was secondary at St Aloysius near Euston. And then on to work at the café full time. Life felt very Italian. Mum always spoke Italian to me. We bought pasta at Gazzano’s, an Italian deli down Clerkenwell Road.” The family also went to church at St Peter’s in Hatton Gardens which Nina says “ is like a miniature Vatican inside.” As the years passed the Italians around Clerkenwell moved. Nina says they went to “Highbury, then Finchley and then on further afield. There’s a very big community in Hoddesdon, Herts.”
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