Peter Jacomelli; Last of a long line of Swiss-Italian Ticinese restaurateurs whose café-restaurant was frequented by Ralph Richardson
Hyfler/Rosner
April 2, 2009
Peter Jacomelli: restaurateur
Peter Jacomelli was the last of the Swiss-Italian Ticinese
restaurateurs in a tradition stretching back to 1847 when
Carlo Gatti opened a café in Hungerford Market on the site
of Charing Cross Station. In 1900 there were no fewer than
nine Ticinese café-restaurants in Oxford Street alone.
Peter Jacomelli was born in 1917 in Wimbledon where his
parents, Aldo Jacomelli and Adelaide, née Genoni, ran the
Station Restaurant. Members of the Jacomelli family had been
running restaurants in London and Bristol from the 1850s,
though Aldo had been born and brought up in Semione in the
Val di Blenio, the home valley of Carlo Gatti and (with the
neighbouring Valle Leventina) most of the Ticinese
restaurateurs. His maternal ancestors, the Genonis, and
Pazzis had come to England in the 1850s and after working
for the Gattis, borrowed money from them to acquire
restaurants in Finsbury Park, Croydon and Wimbledon. In 1922
the family moved from Wimbledon when Aldo acquired another
long-established Ticinese restaurant, Valchera's, a few
doors away from Richmond station.
Jacomelli was equally fluent in English and the local
Swiss-Italian dialect, having been educated for several
years in Semione. He served with the London Irish Regiment
during the Second World War in the Middle East, North Africa
and Italy. His experiences confirmed his strong pacifist
instincts, though he acquired a fund of stories and retained
fond memories of the camaraderie. His war service came to an
end with his capture at Monte Cassino and he spent the last
year as a prisoner of war in Germany.
His redoubtable mother (who died in 1965) assumed control
over the restaurant after her husband's death in 1934 and
ran it until Peter and his siblings gradually assumed
control after the Second World War. They turned the
restaurant into perhaps the best and certainly one of the
most loved in Richmond. He had numerous tales to tell about
the actors and writers, such as J. B. Priestley, John
Betjeman and Ralph Richardson, who frequented it. The
failure to find a successor in the next generation led to
the final closure of the restaurant in 1987. Though
Jacomelli tried his hardest to prevent such an outcome, the
site is now occupied by a McDonald's.
Most of his scarce leisure time was devoted to the Unione
Ticinese, which had originally been founded as a benevolent
society for Ticinese waiters in London by Carlo Gatti's
nephew, Stefano Gatti, in 1874 and which in the month of
Jacomelli's death celebrated its 135th anniversary. He
served as president from 1954 to 1965 and again from 1978 to
1981.
Jacomelli had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Ticinese
families in Britain and in the Val di Blenio, which he
visited as often as he could. His knowledge found expression
in the book Continental Taste (1998) detailing the life of
the Ticinese restaurateurs. In his last years he became
something of a celebrity because of a Swiss television
documentary on his life and his service with the British
Forces during the Second World War.
He remained vigorous to the end and at 90 he was still busy
preparing his inimitable risotto at the Unione Ticinese's
annual June barbecue.
He is survived by a stepdaughter.
Peter Jacomelli, restaurateur, was born on September 26,
1917. He died on February 27, 2009, aged 91