Italian chef Enzo Mauro is retiring after almost 40 years in the business, signaling the closure of his Mottram restaurant, Osteria Mauro.
Enzo, 67, moved to England in 1968 to improve his English, but has gone on to run a number of successful restaurants, including Osteria Mauro in Mottram St Andrew and Mauro’s in Bollington, famous for its huge variety of the Italian spirit ‘Grappa’.
The grandfather-of-six, who has lived in Bollington for 20 years and announced his retirement to staff on Monday, said: “You need a lot of passion to stay in this job.
“You are always working when everybody else is enjoying themselves, and you are off when everybody is working.
“I’m 67 now so I’ve decided it’s time to retire. I still love cooking, I just don’t want to be doing the long shifts any more.”
Despite being famous for his huge selection of ravioli, Enzo, who worked as a waiter at Claridges before buying his first restaurant in Newbridge, honed his cookery skills in English kitchens, opening his first restaurant in Newmarket in 1976.
He said: “I bought my first restaurant and became a chef reluctantly. I had always spent a lot of time in the kitchens, asking questions about what the chefs are doing and it came quite naturally to me.
“I’m very proud to have been named Chef of the Year and Mauro’s was named in the top five best Italian restaurants in the UK.”
Enzo also boasts a number of famous fans, including an entire Italian football team and former Manchester United player Cristiano Ronaldo, who played for Enzo’s favourite team.
He said: “They’ve asked me to cook for Juventus and Inter Milan when they were playing over here.
“We became good friends with Ronaldo, he would come in two or three times a week, and Sir Alex Ferguson comes a lot.”
But Enzo is not hanging up the apron completely and hopes to do more outside catering and cookery lessons locally, splitting his time between Capri, in Italy, and Bollington.
He and wife Gill are now looking forward to spending their first Christmas for 30 years in Italy. Son Alex, 40, who will continue to run the family’s two other restaurants, Stock in Manchester and the Lead Station in Chorlton, said it’s with a heavy heart they have sold the business.
He said: “We’ve found it difficult to find a chef as good as dad, and because the restaurant was named after him we decided we had to lose it and concentrate on Stock. (The staff) are a really nice set of people, they have been a fantastic squad.”
Osteria Mauro’s last day of trading will be Sunday, January 6. New owners Brunning and Price plan to reopen it as a pub using its original name, The Bull’s Head.
