A man with a generous serving of natural charm, a rich sense of humour and boundless energy, Mario Cassandro was one of the “pasta pioneers” in Sixties London. In 1959 he and his business partner Franco Lagattolla founded the now celebrated Trattoria Terrazza, known affectionately to its many celebrity diners as “the Trat”.
Their arrival was timely. Fresh from witnessing the hedonism of Italy’s dolce vita, they found themselves in London on the brink of the Swinging Sixties. The recipe for their success was authentic Italian home cooking delivered by an effective double act. Cassandro was a volatile Neapolitan while Lagattolla was a more urbane, level-headed Anglo-Italian born in London. A further decisive factor was a chance meeting with athird Neapolitan, the restaurant designer Enzo Apicella, who wanted to introduce a more modern, more informal style of restaurant design.
Instead of the traditional tail-coated waiters and the low-lit stuffy atmosphere associated with grand dining, there would be ceramic tiled floors, rough plaster walls, hanging lamps over the tables, chairs with rush seats. The waiters would wear blue and white-striped Neapolitan T-shirts, black trousers and loafers. Some were encouraged to sing.
The accent on home cooking was established from the opening night. While curious diners were filing through the restaurant’s freshly painted doors, Lagattolla was on the telephone to his mother asking for her recipe for spaghetti alle vongole. Meanwhile, Cassandro was greeting each guest like a long-lost relative from Naples, recommending they try such novel dishes as vitello tonnato, or rigatoni alle cozze.
Lagattolla took charge of the kitchen, overseeing quality and service, while the stocky, ebullient Cassandro was a natural host and front of house manager. He possessed an enviable — and invaluable — long-term memory for names and faces. As an employer he was firm on discipline but generous to his chefs and waiters. For all his bonhomie there were limits to Cassandro’s patience. He was remembered at the Mirabelle for once grabbing a troublemaking diner by the lapels, and throwing him to the floor before attempting to strangle him.
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Mario Cassandro was born in Naples, the third of four children, in 1920. It was a tough childhood but not lacking the powerful ties of family affection.
At 18 he was conscripted into the Italian Army. He was captured during the Second World War and imprisoned in North Africa. Later he was transferred to Bangalore in southern India where he spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp, and where he met his future wife, Mary MacDonell, an Irish nurse.
He was repatriated in 1946, but the high unemployment in Italy forced him to try his luck among the Italian community in London. In Soho and Mayfair he enlisted in another army, that of Italian waiters, and he was eventually promoted to head wine waiter at the Mirabelle.
Lagattolla died in 1980, and Cassandro retired in 1991. Cassandro’s marriage to Mary MacDonnell was dissolved. He was subsequently married to Hilaire Ashe-Jones, who survives him with their daughter and the two sons of his first marriage.
Mario Cassandro, restaurateur, was born on April 14, 1920. He died on June 26, 2011, aged 91