By Paul Bradley

Hi Natasha. How has your restaurant, Nonna’s, been going for you since opening in Letterkenny?

We just celebrated our first anniversary in Letterkenny, four doors up from our first place here in 2007-2010, Little Italy. It’s been a great year in which we have built up a regular base of lovely customers, whom we know on a first name basis by now.

Has word of mouth been a big factor for you?

Word of mouth has been paramount to our success as it always has been, I don’t believe we have ever advertised anywhere. FB is great at keeping down costs!

Could you tell us the story behind the restaurant?

Our story is a long one! I am an Inishowen native. At the age of 20 I left Donegal and went to work in Germany for the summer with a friend from college. It was here I met Salvatore who comes from the beautiful island of Sicily. At the time he was a waiter in an Italian restaurant called “Met”! I have to say that it was love at first sight and we’ve now been 31 years together.

A few years later in Munich, we began a family and in 2003 we moved back to Ireland with our son and daughter and opened our first business in Castleblayney in 2003 called La Traviata. It was an instant success. Around 2005 we moved to Letterkenny to be closer to family and opened Pizzeria Little Italy. It was like Nonna’s, small but cosy and intimate. We had an exotic menu with frogs’ legs, ostrich and crocodile to name but a few! After a few years and two more lovely children, we upgraded to a bigger place in the town but the crash of 2010/11 brought that dream to an end as it did for many businesses in Ireland.

We moved to Sicily for a few years to weather the storm, and ran a little trattoria there in the countryside. In 2015 we decided, along with the kids, to return to Ireland that was then booming. We opened Trattoria Toscana, a very successful Italian restaurant in Donegal town.

After our lease was up we headed off to Coleraine where we ran Fabios Traditional Italian takeaway for three to four years. Missing our now-adult children we then returned to Letterkenny where the entire family has worked together. The kids have taken after their parents gastronomically and our son Gaetano is the chef in Nonna’s now, cooking up fabulous delights including homemade ravioli with his own nduja creamy sauce that’s a favourite amongst our regulars. After less than a year he has learned all about homemade pastas and many other Italian specialities from his father who has been chefing for almost thirty years and who has won awards for his skills. He also makes a wonderful tiramisu that has become the most popular dessert among our customers. Franco, Salvatore’s brother, has been with us now for many years. He’s our pizzaiolo and makes fresh homemade bread and pizza dough every day.

Even our youngest Kristian, 15, has joined the team and has become popular with the customers.

What’s the ethos – I presume it’s summed up by the name, Nonna’s, which suggests fresh traditional Italian family food?

You could call us the quintessential traditional and authentic Italian family-run restaurant. Nonna means Grandmother and the children’s granny Angela is very passionate about cooking. I think they learned their love of food through her. Among our many 5 star reviews you’ll read praise for being a quirky and friendly family-run restaurant where you will hear both singing and yelling coming from the kitchen depending on the day. Thankfully the cursing is done in Sicilian! The guys put a real effort into bringing authentic Italian pizzas and pastas to our customers every day. Every single dish is made from scratch with fresh and high-quality ingredients brought in each day to ensure the best flavours and aromas…garlic being up there at the top! We also have a weekly specials menu including steak and fish and other Sicilian specialities. We all work very hard to ensure an absolute genuine and authentic Italian experience and appreciate the loyalty of our customers. Our Carbonara, on request by customers has been adapted to the ‘Irish’ way and cream added. The original version with just egg isn’t popular here and we Irish like our creamy pastas!

What is it that makes Italian food so good anyway?

Well, Italians absolutely love food and family, it’s all about sitting round the table for hours with an abundance of hearty and healthy Italian foods, including fish, meat, pasta, homemade bread, and of course Nonno’s homemade wine. Italians don’t just love food, it’s their way of life and no better example of that is dinner time in an Italian household where you must raise your voice to be heard! For authentic Italian food there needs to be a passion for cooking and a genuine love for food and making your guests happy (and stuffed to the hilt!).

As both owners and staff of a new, small restaurant, is it all-consuming?

With the rising cost of living, taxes and wages we must pull together as a family and put in long hours every week. Days off are spent with family at home, eating nice Italian meals and getting much needed rest.

Would you like bigger premises, or does the small size also suit the idea of traditional trattoria?

The size of Nonna’s has contributed to what many customers call “cosy” “quirky” and a “beautiful escape from Letterkenny to Italy for a while”. There is always such a buzzing atmosphere inside even though it’s very small, it works for us and we have no plans to upgrade.

Are there any local issues you would like to draw attention to?

We would like to bring attention to a serious problem out the back of the premises: rats. The place is infested with them from all the rubbish and food that’s left out there by other businesses. Overflowing bins are picked at by the crows and food lies everywhere. We have made several attempts to get the council to look into it but they haven’t made good on multiple promises for over a year now. We have had to go to great expense to prevent the rats from coming into our premises, removing the rubbish every single day.

Another problem we have that has a great financial burden for us is the annual Donegal rally. Due to lack of policing there is a lot of crime and damage caused by some people attending the rally, attending more for the social side than any love for the sport. I believe it’s only fair that small businesses like ours who must all take the tough decision to close for the duration of the rally be compensated in some way by the government or those who financially gain the most from the proceeds of the rally. The big fish feeding the small kind of thing.

We feel it’s also ridiculous that holiday pay is required for staff when many businesses aren’t even open on bank holidays. We are very fortunate to be family run and as a family we understand how totally unfair it is to expect a day’s wage for a day we aren’t even open in order to provide more revenue for the government. There are now 10 days per year classed as bank holidays and it’s very unfair to expect businesses to fork out money for unworked hours. This really needs to be looked at and I feel the government should also contribute to a workers holidays since they pay so much in taxes from their wages.

Anything else?

Yes, we’ll be closed from July 6 to August 6. We’ll be visiting Nonna.

If anyone else would like to take part in this interview, to raise a profile or an issue, please contact Paul at Dnthirddegree@gmail.com