‘Nothing causes me more anxiety than a restaurant with a good cause’
I am, frankly, fretting about 111 By Nico, a small restaurant in an undistinguished shopping strip (dry cleaners, wee barber’s, Spar) in deepest, residential Kelvindale. Its etched-glass windows and black exterior are a touch forbidding; inside, quantities of glossy black tiles glower dourly. It’s a space that has housed three restaurants in almost as many years, having previously been La Famiglia and Simply Fish, both owned by current chef patron, Nico Simeone. Which is, let’s face it, just a bit odd.
It’s day five of opening, and I hate storming in so soon, but the thing that’s worrying me most is hinted at by a homily on the dark grey walls: “Forget their pasts, break their boundaries, let them realise what can be achieved, and direct on the path to achieve it.” I can’t find a source for this, so I’m assuming it’s the work of Simeone himself, who has dictated that 111 By Nico is to be a training academy for young people with “a poor start in life”. Heading up the kitchen is Senegalese exile Modou Diagme, who, after a spell of homelessness, started with Simeone as a kitchen porter and worked his way up to being in charge of the kitchen. There’s nothing that causes me more anxiety than a restaurant with a good cause: what if it’s awful? What if I don’t like it? The karma doesn’t bear thinking about.
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