New La Norma chef brings authentic flair from Italy itself

Davide Nanni hasn’t been in the United States for long, but he already seems to have a favorite word in English: love.

Love permeates everything Nanni does, from his interactions with the 31,000-plus people who follow his Facebook page to the way he views his role at La Norma. In November, Nanni moved from Italy, his homeland, and came to the United States for the first time to become the chef at La Norma, a Sicilian restaurant on Longboat Key.

He wants customers to feel at home in his restaurant.

“The only thing they should do is sit down and eat,” Nanni said through the translation of La Norma co-owner Gianfranco Santagati. “Come, sit down and eat, and trust me with my menu.”

Perhaps this attitude is born in part from the origin of Nanni’s love for cooking: his family, of course. Nanni grew up on a farm in Abruzzo, a region about 50 miles east of Rome, with animals such as sheep, pigs, goats and chicken. When he was as young as 3, he would watch his parents and grandparents make fresh pasta and cheese. He said his mother, who ran a small farmhouse restaurant, was the best chef in the family.

Nanni graduated from culinary school at about 18 years old. Only a month later, he moved to London, where he worked at Locanda Locatelli, an Italian restaurant that holds one Michelin star. Although he was surrounded by experts, Nanni didn’t enjoy the environment.

“It's not friendly at all,” Nanni said. “That's why I decided to adopt a different philosophy in the kitchen. You pick . . .  Do you want to be a nice guy? In the kitchen, the chefs are [often] prima donnas. They give [bad] energies to the employees and colleagues. I started choosing the different path. Let's work with love.”

And work with love he does.

Santagati called him a magician and a doctor. Nanni thinks of himself as an artist. Perhaps caretaker would also fit. He talks to the ingredients. He caresses the dough. He listens to the crunch of the bread. It’s a process that involves every one of the five senses, one that starts the night before while he lies in bed, reflecting on what he did that day and brainstorming what he can do tomorrow.

That level of care shines through on his Facebook page, where Nanni has built a large following because of his cooking videos. He insists he didn’t have any idea his page would become so popular, but that he started it simply for fun. Of course Nanni’s followers love his dishes, but he thinks they are drawn in even more by his personality and positive energy. Although it can be time-consuming, Nanni tries to reply to every comment and question as if it were from his best friend.

“They love me without knowing me,” Nanni said. “And this makes me happy.”

La Norma actually found Nanni through his Facebook page. They struck up a relationship through social media and started recruiting Nanni over the phone. Eventually, they decided to bet on each other.

The most difficult part of the decision for Nanni was leaving home. After London, he had moved back to Italy and worked at several restaurants in Rome. In his homeland, the 28-year-old Nanni is still at an age where many children stay close enough to see their families on a daily basis. But he said his heart told him it was the right time to leave for a new opportunity.

So far, he has enjoyed working at La Norma, where he is helping Santagati and the store’s other proprietors (Santagati’s wife, Alessandra, her sister, Daniela Salafia, and Salafia’s husband, Giuseppe Fornieri) realize their vision of an authentic, non-Americanized Italian restaurant — and doing so with a healthy dose of Nanni’s signature ingredient.

“We feel that we are in the right place,” Santagati said, “in the right moment, with the right attitude, with the right staff and equipment and love.”