It's the early evening cocktail hour on a beach in Tuscany. Oliver Peyton is acting barman, passing around glasses of vodka and watermelon juice to family and friends. It is that blissful moment on any holiday when the kids are finally in bed and the adults can relax and look forward to a long, easy evening.
Restaurateur Peyton is in Italy with his extended family on their summer break. His mother-in-law Olga Polizzi - owner of the Tresanton Hotel in St Mawes, Cornwall and the sister of Rocco Forte - has rented a house from an old, aristocratic Italian family in the seaside resort of San Vincenzo. It is one of those grand old villas full of antiques and an alarming antler collection in the hall. A long path leads directly to its own beach and a wooden shack reminiscent of Cape Cod.
Also in the party are Peyton's wife Charlie, her sister Alex and Alex's fiancé Paul. Socialite Romilly McAlpine has turned up from her home in Venice and Polizzi's husband William Shawcross, who has just been named the late Queen Mother's biographer, is arriving shortly. The Peyton children - Finn, aged two, and four-month-old Molly - are fast asleep up at the house.
The atmosphere is casual - it's far too hot to dress up. The Polizzi girls are still wearing their swimsuits with sarongs bought in the local market, but Peyton - ever the smoothie - is wearing a Marc Jacobs T-shirt and Prada shorts. 'God, I'm such a victim,' he laughs.
Everyone is looking forward to dinner. Mark Broadbent, the head chef of Peyton's Italian restaurant in Knightsbridge, Isola, has come out to join his boss on a culinary tour of the area and he has been in the kitchen all day. There are deep-fried zucchini flowers, sardines, sand eels and little red mullet as appetisers, a huge gilthead bream cooked in a crust of sea salt, wood-roasted tinkerbell chillies and fennel, baked pomodoro pisanello with artichokes and a dish of borlotti beans braised with sage, garlic, olive oil and some prosciutto in the stock for flavour.
As darkness falls the table is illuminated by dozens of little candles, which cast a red glow on the deserted beach. These are the candles that you can buy for a few pence in local supermarkets - Italians light them in cemeteries - and Polizzi thinks they are wonderful. She has put in an order of 800 to decorate Tresanton next Christmas. For pudding there are peaches and apricots roasted with acacia and sunflower honey, with mascarpone or hazelnut ice-cream; no one has any room for pecorino.
The next day Peyton is up bright and early. He should be relaxing, sitting in the sun, getting stuck into a good book and not even thinking about the office - but he is on his mobile phone, discussing a new project in Casablanca and booking restaurants that he and Broadbent will visit. As a result, his holiday reading - Simon Sebag-Montefiore's book on Stalin - sits untouched on a deckchair.
'Yeah, I think I'm at page four,' he says. 'It's difficult to concentrate. I am in the middle of re-inventing all my restaurants... even if they don't need re-inventing. I don't like standing still. Can't do it. Not my style.'
Since he stopped drinking four years ago, the one-time party boy about town is said to have mellowed. There was an interesting moment the night before when Peyton, now 41, thought he had mistaken a glass of vodka for water. He doesn't drink - does that mean he's an alcoholic?
'Yes, yes, definitely. I had the John Belushi attitude to life - better to burn out than fade away.My life was very over the top, very rock'n'roll.' What about drugs? 'I did do drugs but my problem, and I've thought about this a lot, emanated from drinking. It altered my character so I became loud and abusive. It wasn't compatible with being a restaurateur.'
He went to the Priory. 'I was against it because it's such a well-trodden path, isn't it? A bit naff. But the doctor I was seeing insisted, and in retrospect it was good for me. I find it easier to talk about it now. I was apprehensive about admitting I had a problem, I suppose.'
Does he go to Alcoholics Anonymous?
'Yes, no. Well, I haven't been for months but it's there if I need it. I still like being around people who drink and I still go out a lot because I've got a lot more energy now, but I'm very aware of my limitations.' Peyton came to London from Ireland while he was still a student. He ran two successful nightclubs in the Eighties and then started importing Absolut vodka and the Japanese beers Kirin and Sapporo into the UK. He launched The Atlantic Bar and Grill in 1994 followed by Coast in Mayfair (now sold). Since then he has also opened Isola, Mash - in London and Manchester - and the Admiralty at Somerset House.
He says he has been disillusioned with his business in the past few years. 'It was too frenetic, too big,' he says. 'I couldn't hang on to my staff. I almost handed it over.' Now he feels reinvigorated. He describes this re-discovered passion for feeding and entertaining people as 'being back in the love business'.
Top of his reinvention list is Isola. He met its new chef Mark Broadbent at The Oak in Notting Hill. 'Mark and I just clicked. His panettone bread and butter pudding - it rocked my boat.' But here's the irony: this is Broadbent's first visit to Italy. Not only that but the new antipasto menu will be largely British produce. 'I don't need an Italian chef,' shrugs Peyton. 'I've had a lot of Italian chefs over the years and their perspective of Italian food doesn't match up to mine. They come over here and suddenly they're cooking in French derivative style. They won't do spaghetti vongole, for example, because they think it's too simple.'
He points out that Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray have been successful at the River Café because they present an English perspective of Italian food. 'Some of the best Italian food I have ever eaten has not been in Italy,' he adds, citing Babbo, Esca and Lupa in New York, Oliveto and Rose Pistola in San Francisco, and Citabria in the Nishi-Azabu district of Tokyo as examples.
Thirty-six-year-old Broadbent is rather embarrassed at having to admit that this is his first visit to Italy, but says the trip has endorsed what he has always thought: 'It's all about the quality of the ingredients, just putting something really good on the plate without feeling you have to add too much to it or fiddle about with it,' he says. He says that while there will never be a substitute for really good Italian olive oil, prosciutto and some cheese, he doesn't see why you can't use British products in an Italian way. Porcini mushrooms from the New Forest, for example, or porchetta from Gloucester Old Spot pig. He also believes that his culinary innocence in matters Italiano will work to his advantage. 'I'm an English chef, not Italian, so I'm not steeped in tradition. I don't have my granny breathing down my neck, screeching that's not how we did it in the old days,' he says.
The Peyton energy beam is also being directed at the Atlantic Bar and Grill and Australian chef Ben O'Donoghue, Jamie Oliver's old sidekick, has been appointed to bring in the changes. Then there is the opening of Villa Zevaco, a restaurant complex in Casablanca. But what Peyton is most excited about is his newly built restaurant in London's St James Park. Inn the Park will open in March next year. 'It's going to be a British café and I'm really getting down and dirty on it,' says Peyton. 'We're having a big salad trough, a huge three-metre-long grill. There'll be no champagne, just British sparkling wine and things like apple crumble, ice-cream and proper knickerbocker glories.'
Peyton says marriage to his 29-year-old wife, whom he met when she came to work as a greeter at one of his restaurants, has grounded him. 'We have a lot in common. We both come from big, close-knit Catholic families. We both wanted children. Being married to someone in this business is really hard but Charlie knows what it's all about. I'm not a confrontational guy and she's very direct. She's much stronger than me, very passionate, very Italian.'
He eats at the family home perhaps once every two weeks and never has dinner parties. 'Cooking at home fills me with dread because I'm such a perfectionist. I'd much rather take people out to one of my own restaurants.' He says it's a myth that restaurateurs don't get on because they're too competitive; the places he currently admires are St John, Assaggi and Locanda Locatelli. He loves to travel: this month will be Casablanca, in October New York, and for Christmas the family will be going somewhere 'hot and quiet' in Asia or South America. Maybe on one of those trips he will finish his book.
Mark Broadbent's Italian recipes
Summer leaf salad
San Vincenzo
serves 4
trevise - 1 head
ciccoria - 1 head
rocket - 2 bunches
young artichokes - 5
flat-leaf parsley leaves - 50g, shredded
fresh marjoram - a good pinch, chopped
fruity olive oil - 1 small bottle
aged Vin Cotto (a rich red wine vinegar) - 1 bottle
lemon - juice of 1
lemon - zest of 1
garlic - 1 large clove, crushed
Maldon sea salt
cracked black pepper
cherry vine tomatoes - 1 punnet
Wash all the leaves, then spin until dry. Shave the raw, young artichokes on a mandolin, lightly salt and marinate for an hour or so in a mixture of the lemon juice, lemon zest, parsley leaves, marjoram, crushed garlic, olive oil and Vin Cotto.
Cut the cherry vine tomatoes in half and season. At the last minute toss the leaves, cherry tomatoes and artichokes together and serve with the lobster (below).
Whole roast lobster
Toscana
serves 4
lobsters - 2 large (1 between 2)
unwaxed lemons - 2 (with leaves)
flat leaf parsley - 1 bunch, shredded
olive oil
Wrap some foil around the lobsters' antennae to stop them from burning.
Lightly brush the rest of the lobsters with olive oil, skewer the nervous system from head to tail with a bamboo skewer, then place on a baking sheet which has been covered by a bed of rock salt. Roast in a hot oven for 10-12 minutes, remove and cool.
With a heavy cook's knife cut the lobsters in half lengthways and serve with the unwaxed, leafy lemons, fruity extra-virgin olive oil and shredded flat-leaf parsley.
Grilled pale aubergines with garlic and herbs
serves 4
5 aubergines
Maldon sea salt
milled black pepper
olive oil
sunflower oil
garlic - 1 whole head
basil - six large, torn
lemon thyme - 2 sprigs
oregano - 1 sprig, torn
good red wine vinegar (such as Forum's Cabernet Sauvignon vinegar)
Cut the aubergines into wedges, season then dress in a little olive and sunflower oils.
On a hot griddle, sear the edges (the white flesh) to get a sealed bar effect, then place in a roasting tray with the unpeeled garlic cloves scattered throughout the dish. Add some more of the two oils and slow-roast skin-side down at 160°/gas 3 for approximately 45 minutes.
Once the aubergines are cooked, scatter the torn basil, lemon thyme and oregano over the top, and finish by adding a splash of good red wine vinegar. Serve at room temperature.
Roast white and yellow peaches, baby apricots and sunflower honey
serves 4
apricots - 8
white peaches - 6
yellow peaches - 6
olive oil
sunflower honey - 1 jar
mascarpone - 1 tub
Halve the apricots and peaches, remove the stones and place flesh-side down on a lightly oiled tray with a little of the honey smeared over it. Lightly brush the fruit with a little olive oil and little honey to form a glaze and ensure that the skins scorch nicely. Put in a hot oven for 10-15 minutes.
Remove from the oven and pour a generous cascade of honey over the fruit. Leave to macerate. Serve slightly warm with rich, creamy mascarpone.
· Isola, 145 Knightsbridge, London SW1 (020 7838 1044). The antipasto bar opens 15 September
