Diego Cardoso, Murano, London

Diego Cardoso is the head chef of Angela Hartnett’s Murano restaurant in central London. Cardoso first met Angela Hartnett almost a decade ago whilst working at the Connaught Hotel in Mayfair.
After Gordon Ramsay and Angela Hartnett opened the restaurant in 2008, it was purchased outright by Hartnett from Ramsay on October 8th 2010 with Cardoso taking over as head chef. The restaurant largely serves Italian food, serving rural staples alongside modern French techniques. The Staff Canteen headed to London to meet Cardoso and see what life is like as head chef of Murano.

Diego first and foremost thank you very much for inviting me in. Let’s talk about your role here at Murano. Give us an overview of your role.

Basically I run the kitchen here while Angela’s not here, and anything that's involved, from prepping to organising menus, working on and writing new dishes, obviously everything gets double checked with Angela, but I think I've worked with Angela long enough now that I know the style of food that she likes and my style is very similar to hers.

So where did you and Angela first meet?

I was working at the Connaught when Angela took over the Connaught Hotel so it was ten years ago now. In the last ten years we've been working together in a few different restaurants, the Connaught, Cielo in Florida and now here in Murano Mayfair.

In terms of, you say you work together with Angela on menus, how do you come up with dishes? Is it you that come up with an idea or a dish and then take it to Angela or do you work together?

I think it really depends, each dish is different but mostly what tends to happens is we look at the menu and we try to look at the menu quite regularly  perhaps the season for something is finishing so we need to change it, and we start thinking of different ideas. If it’s a vegetarian dish we try to replace it with another vegetarian dish. I might have an idea and start working with that dish and once I'm happy with it I bring it to Angela and say, “This is the dish I'd like to do,” take a picture of it, send it to her, she will taste it and then she will say, a couple of options right there, recommend any changes. But most of the times to be honest it works.

The food that we put on the menu it all needs to be balanced, it all has to have a style and if it doesn’t then we have a problem because it would be very disappointing for somebody to come in for lunch or dinner to really like the style of the starters and then when they get to the main course it’s written by a different person and it doesn’t make any sense and I think that's one of the main things that we've realised over the last two years here at Murano now, we're getting stronger and stronger with that.

Head chef, Michelin star restaurant, Angela very, very high profile, probably one of the most high profile females in the industry, what’s your biggest challenge with your role?

To be honest the biggest problem I've had to deal with at Murano is the size of the kitchen more than anything. We have a small kitchen and it can be tight at times, but once you get your head around it, it’s ok. We’ve adjusted to it and make it work.

So you have to be ultra organised and ultra efficient do you?

You have to be really organised, you don’t want to do massive over ordering,  If we had more fridge space for example, your venison you can get five saddles of venison in and hang and age them whereas now we order the saddles in by the day and we have to talk to our suppliers to make sure that they age it to our liking, obviously it’s much easier if you have it in front of you and you can do it yourself, but of course it’s not impossible as we've learnt and you do of course learn in any role.

And what do you think has been your greatest success in your role so far? What are you most proud of that you've achieved here?

I think the team that I've got at the moment and I think the team’s got better and better since we opened Murano and I'm very happy with the atmosphere we have in the kitchen. They are a group of very talented young chefs who push on very hard. I'm a big believer that we work a lot of hours, we all see each other constantly so we have to get along. I think it’s a great atmosphere in the kitchen and that's probably the thing that I'm the happiest with because I've worked in several kitchens for several people and from very early on I knew that I would never run a kitchen in an aggressive way, if that makes sense, I don't think it’s necessary. I think every now and then it’s good and it wakes everybody up but it’s not a tool to be used constantly.

Obviously when you first started or when Murano first opened Gordon’s name was above the door……so how much, or if at all, has the food style changed since that changed and it’s solely Angela in charge now?

I think the food style has changed definitely but I don't think it has anything to do with the fact that we are or not part of Gordon Ramsay Holdings.

It’s just been evolution has it?

It’s been evolution because Gordon was very good, we had been very happy working for Gordon Ramsay Holdings, we had a big team behind us to help us with all the logistic, the opening, getting the suppliers, getting the right things here and there, but from the menu writing point of view, Gordon and Angela get along really well. They’ve had a fantastic relationship always and it’s always been Angela’s restaurant from that aspect. It’s never been Gordon’s food. So the food is definitely been an evolution.

Progressive?

Evolved, the food has definitely evolved. We try to eat out a lot with Angela, her on her own, me on my own and then together in different places, from that  we bring ideas, we take ideas from that. We don’t copy the food but you might take an idea, you might take a flavour combination that you like and we go from there. I think it’s getting better and better and the feedback we're getting is fantastic.

Last question for you then if I may. Ten years with Angela, very successful, but where do you want to be in five years time? Do you want to make a name for yourself? Is that going to be with another restaurant with Angela or where do you see this part of your career?

To be honest it’s a very difficult question, probably one I ask myself every morning when I wake up. But it’s every chefs dream is to have their own restaurant so that would be great.

But there's a big financial risk involved in that.

You have to be realistic with everything. Is it something that is doable. There are so many restaurants in London right now, the competition is fierce but that's what makes it interesting. That's what makes London so incredibly exciting, even in this street where we are, there's one, two, three, four restaurants in this street and that's ridiculous and that's just the one street.

Great for the consumer..

it’s great for the consumer but also from the restaurant’s point of view and from the chef’s point of view you have to make sure that the customer leaves happy because if they don’t leave happy there's no reason they would come back. But competition is great, that’s what makes us chefs push harder every day to get better, to constantly be evolving and stay on top of our game.

Would I like my own restaurant? Yes definitely. With Angela? Absolutely. Without Angela? I guess, I don't know, it’s very open really.

Well Diego thank you very much I've really enjoyed talking to you. Thank you very much for your time.

No problem.