A Maltese chef who made headlines after ditching a job at top London restaurant Nopi to make school dinners for over 500 kids a day is coming home to cook up a storm.

Nicole Pisani swapped swanky diners for rowdy schoolkids.

Nicole Pisani will be flying to Malta with a team from London to put up a great culinary feast at Palazzo tal-Virtu in Rabat, between 3 and 5 June.

She will be joined by Cheryl-Lynne Booth, who worked as sous-chef at the popular Riding House Cafe in London, and by her ex-colleague and good friend Pierre Malouf, front of house at Ms Pisani’s former workplace, Nopi.

“I always want, in the end, to go back to the basics of the food we enjoy and how we eat. Back to nature, to the sea and to the earth, and for me back to my roots, which is where I call home. Food is for sharing, and nowhere more so than Malta,” said Ms Pisani.

Ms Pisani was previously Head Chef at Nopi, the Soho restaurant set up by guru chef and writer Yotam Ottolenghi. There, she served up Middle Eastern-inspired dishes for London’s wealthy diners.

But she packed it all in and instead relocated her kitchen to a primary school in south London, serving up smashed avocados and dhal to schoolchildren instead.
The Palazzo tal-Virtu feast will serve as the basis for a new cookbook Ms Pisani is in the process of preparing, Salt Butter Bones. Her first book, Magic Soup, features some of her favourite home recipes, including Maltese staple soppa tal-armla.

For reservations, email info@emmadiacono.com or find the event on Facebook.