We are delighted to announce that Padrig Jones is now working with us as a Creative Chef Consultant.

Padrig brings a wealth of experience and will be working with our existing kitchen staff to build on our passion for creating simple dishes using fresh locally sourced ingredients, cooked in the authentic Italian way. Padrig attended catering college in Cardiff, working in his spare time for David Evans at Spangheros in Westgate Street. “Looking back, it was a kitchen full of talented chefs who are now holding their own in restaurants all around the world.” Padrig had designs on working in a French restaurant and started work at Le Cassoulet in Cardiff – which at the time was famous for its casserole from southwest France made with bean, sausage, pork, and duck confit. Receiving a Marco Pierre White cookbook as an 18th birthday present, his passion for cooking further developed. He said: “The food Marco was cooking was above and beyond anything else at the time and I really wanted to work with him.” So, at the age of 18, Padrig went to work in the Hilton in Park Lane in London as a first commis chef. “I loved it”, Padrig said. On his days off Padrig would work unpaid in other restaurants including Marco Pierre White’s Harveys in Wandsworth. He was then offered a job at Marco’s new restaurant called The Canteen in Chelsea – also co-owned by actor Michael Caine, where he worked under Stephen Terry – now at The Hardwick in Abergavenny. “I spent 2 years at The Canteen. It had one Michelin star serving 500 covers a day. A Michelin star requires absolute consistency from a restaurant, nothing is good enough. Working there really enabled me to push myself.”

In 1997 Padrig decided to come home to Cardiff and set up a new restaurant called Le Gallois as head chef, with sister Elen and her husband Francis Dupuy, Le Gallois started life as a family bistro and over a ten year period, it set the standard for fine dining in Cardiff. Padrig also spent 5 years as Innovation NPD and Development Chef for various companies. Padrig and our owner Marc are life-long friends with his parents founding customers of ours back in 1986. This will be the second time Padrig has been with us, as whilst he was at sixth form at Glantaf school he had his very first job in catering with our founder Umberto, working as a waiter then moving into the kitchen. “As a child, we used to go on holiday to Italy and France and I’ve always wanted to cook, I asked Umberto if I could work in the kitchen and the rest is history. If it wasn’t for Umberto I may not have had my career as a chef – he gave me my first chance.” Commenting on the arrival of our new chef consultant, owner Marc Palladino said “I have known Paj for 30 years, he is the most instinctive chef I have ever worked alongside, with a fantastic palette. Even though he’s Welsh, I think there is some Italian blood in him somewhere!”

As we come to the end of our 4th week of re-opening the pizzeria, following the forced lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to all my staff for your hard work and enthusiasm in getting yourselves back into work and coming together like the great team which you are. I would also like to thank my customers for your loyalty, support, and understanding.

The last 5 months have been some of the most testing for our small family business in the 34 years we have been trading. Closing the doors was upsetting for me, as it was the first time we have shut since my father opened the pizzeria in 1986, but it was the right thing to do. During lockdown I took the decision to refurbish the restaurant, and post lockdown re-opening has been just as difficult for a few reasons; not being able to trade for 18 weeks has put an enormous strain on us financially, every member of staff has had to learn how to operate within a new kitchen environment and familiarise themselves with the new pizza ovens. Every member of staff has been required to adapt to a new process so we can keep our customers as safe as possible. My staff are nervous about their own safety as we are still living in the unknown, and it’s been a huge demand on my own energy to get this show back on the road.

I realise that we have not been perfect in delivering our service to you and we have made one or two mistakes in the last few weeks, can I ask you all for a favour? Please, if you can – be patient with us. We are immensely proud of our food and the service we deliver, and we are fully committed to continuing our efforts to get better and operate in a more efficient manner so that we can adapt to this new strange world. This goes for any small independent business that you may do business with, be patient with them too, tell them how great they’re doing and support them with your patience as well as your money because it’s extremely tough out there and some of them may not survive these challenging of times. Small independent family-run businesses like ours are the heartbeat of any community and we all need them so we can come together to spend time with our families, socialise with friends, shop, drink coffee and eat good pizza.

Thank you,

Marc.

We’re in love! Our new pizza ovens have arrived and we can’t wait to try out our new piece of kit.

Did you know, it now takes us only 2 minutes and 56 seconds to cook a pizza in our new ovens. Plus they have separate temperature controls in the top and bottom of each oven to evenly distribute the heat to create the perfect crisp base for your pizza – perfect!

To celebrate the latest addition to our kitchen, we asked our social media followers to guess how quickly our new ovens could cook a pizza for the chance to win a free pizza, and  Ivor Henderson was our lucky winner with the closest guess of 3 minutes.

We’ll be hosting more social media competitions online so keep your eyes peeled, and if all this talk of pizza ovens is making you hungry, don’t forget you can order your Pizzeria Villaggio takeaway for home delivery or collection. You can also get any pizza or pasta dish + dessert for only £11.95 when you choose our collection service.* Take a look at our online menu to view our current selection of dishes.

*Offer for collection only; a £2 supplement applies to gamberoni, frutti di mare, and calzone.