Pineapple on pizza? No thanks. Meet the chefs bringing the real Italy to the UK

It might be hard to imagine modern life without pizza or pasta, but Italian restaurant owner Onofrio Maimone remembers a time when there "wasn't even spaghetti on the shelves at Tesco - only spaghetti hoops".

Now his Southport restaurant Volare is among a series of independent eateries winning praise at the recent Italian Awards, which celebrates the finest authentic cuisine in the UK.

Maimone's son Jason won the best up-and-coming chef award, some 40 years after his father first arrived in the UK - when Italian cooking was far less prominent than today.

Ever since, the issue of what exactly constitutes truly "authentic" cuisine from the country has been keenly debated.

Jason said that while many restaurants make tweaks to make meals more amenable to the British palette, Volare largely strives to keep things as traditional as possible.

That means definitely no pineapple on pizza and carbonaras are, of course, made completely without cream.

"I think for a long time a lot of restaurants have maybe bent over the wrong way towards the UK public and changed things a bit to accommodate them, which is great," he said.

"We do that as well. But we don't offer that from the off. Our menu screams authentic."

Volare have been using more homegrown ingredients than ever before amid the rising costs of importing Italian vegetables, which have a different flavour partly due to the warmer climate.

"Artichokes are a prime example of that," Jason said.

"I can make you a dish with the artichokes here and one in Italy with the artichokes in Italy, and they're two completely different worlds.

"So there are battles we struggle with but, overall, we attempt to deliver the most authentic Italian experience."

Justin Ashwin, chef at The Social Trattoria in Poynton, Cheshire, has been working in catering for nearly 20 years and specialised in Italian cuisine after meeting his partner, who is from Venice, eight years ago.

The restaurant was also recognised in the awards, coming highly recommended in the front of house category.

"A lot of big UK chain Italian restaurants stick with the classics of bolognese, lasagna and the garlic breads," Justin said.

"If you go to Italy, they don't really have these dishes everywhere.

"It's not their standard. They use whatever they can to put in the pasta dish, whether it be local or seasonal.

"So we use loads of old school traditional ingredients and dishes that nobody's really heard of, but we like to bring them back as they're tasty."

Away from the restaurant experience, he said the explosion of recipes and video tutorials on social media mean people at home are also "willing to try new things and really push the boat out".

Elsewhere, despite only being 19, head chef Evie Rei was also highly recommended in the up and coming chef category for her dishes at Buccelli's restaurant in Lancaster.

She says her favourite is wild boar ragu - similar to a bolognese - which takes at least eight hours to cook.

"It's a very lengthy process but the end result is very worth it," she said.

The venue's owner Bruno Buccelli recruited Evie fresh out of college when she was 17, having spotted her "exceptional dedication" and because he preferred to train a chef from "square one" instead of breaking in a more experienced worker.

He said he was also keen to educate customers about traditional recipes.

"It's a very hard mission because in some way it goes against the business," he said.

"It would be much, much easier to put pineapple on pizza, which we don't.

"But that's our mission - export authenticity, export tradition, export what is the real Italian cuisine."

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