Roberto Baroni

Morning salt drifts through the open window as I sharpen my knife, its steel mirroring the alley below. The shutters across Via Roma, Italy, rattle, and someone washes the cobblestones, sending thin rivers toward the harbour. By noon my trattoria will glow, and tourists will order pasta alla Norma as if it were a passport stamp. They will not taste the doubts hidden under the basil.

I left school at sixteen to wash dishes. Now, at forty-five, I command five cooks and two ovens in Palermo, Italy. Some nights the responsibility sits on my chest like a sack of lemons. Costs rise, rent creeps, and I move between tradition and survival. The kitchen tiles, cracked by decades of heat, whisper the voices of mentors who taught me patience. Last month I introduced a vegan ragù; half the regulars laughed, the others muttered betrayal. Yet the city changes, even if orange trees in Piazza Marina pretend otherwise.

Yesterday a supplier offered frozen swordfish cheaper than fresh. “No one will know,” he said, tapping his calculator. I did know. My father, may he rest, once slapped my wrist for salting water too late. “Food remembers,” he warned. I sent the man away and spent midnight cleaning squid, ink under my nails like stubborn grief.

Lunch service begins. A young couple studies the menu, wallets aching. I lean out, propose caponata—aubergine, vinegar, sweet hope. They nod with relief. When their plates return clean, my spine straightens. In that moment, numbers hush.

After closing I sit in the courtyard, apron spotted like paint splatter. The air smells of charcoal and jasmine. I recite tomorrow’s orders in my head, resisting the urge to compromise. Beyond the wall, scooters buzz like bees, but inside these stones I keep a slower rhythm: garlic sputter, wine hiss, plate clink, breath.

If the banks tighten, if fashions shift, I will still choose real over easy. A city that survived earthquakes and wars deserves flavours that tell the truth, even when that truth is expensive!