Talking To: Casamia

We were truly gutted here at The Everyday Magazine that Casamia will be closing its doors. Even I have to admit that there are a few moments where words reach their limit, and trying to explain the dining experience, or the level of artistry, that Casamia cultivates is one of those times. All I can say is that it was a genuine privilege to be able to interview Zak. I have the menus from my evening at Casamia framed on my wall, and no other restaurant can, or probably ever will, stake that kind of claim on my heart ever again.

Bristol's food scene is full of truly awesome places. Every corner of this city is home to incredible restaurants, cafes, bars and vibrant street-food markets. There are countless choices to pick from, but some of them are an absolute must - and I had the pleasure to talk to one of the most iconic of them. Here is my interview with Zak Hitchman, Head Chef at the Michelin-star restaurant, and true gem of Bristol, Casamia

Z: Hi I’m Zack, Head Chef at Casamia. I took over about two years ago, right in the height of covid, which has been a funny time for us. We've been sort of operating as this version of Casamia for just under two years now, we completely changed everything. Basically, covid gave us a chance to just stop, because we had to close during the first lockdown so we had a think and finally decided to change absolutely everything in one go.

At Casamia, we do a very long tasting menu, there's not a magic number that we're always working to but at the minute, I think we're on 23 courses. I think we'll never go less than 20 occasionally we've been on 25 courses. I like to keep it very free, really. Since everything is very small obviously there are a lot of finger food dishes, a lot of snacks, but the most important thing is that we always think about customers and everything just needs to taste absolutely amazing, really.

About the changes you went through, how did you change the experience? What was Casamia before and what it is now?
Z: So Casamia has been around for like 25 years or something, way before I even started cooking really. It used to be in Westbury on Trym, that's where it started. It used to be a small family business and they're still involved in Casamia. Pete, who was cooking before here is the main man.

Old school Casamia was almost white. We had carpets on the floor, there was no fire cooking, there was no sound system really. It was just as very simple little sound systems. When we came back from lockdown, Pete and I had a chat and he wanted to change everything because he realised that Casamia needed to be something absolutely amazing. We agreed that it needed to have a bit more of an identity, so Peter had the restaurant painted black. Pete himself actually sanded the floor and did it.

You made it have more of an underground kind of style, with food and music at the centre?

Z: Yeah. I think without music, the graffiti or without the dark walls, the funky lighting and all the wood and charcoal everywhere I think it wouldn't have an addition to it. It would just be food, and that's fine, you know, that's what a lot of restaurants are doing and I've got no problem with that at all, but it's just we're very confident in the food is absolutely amazing, and we're always working on it and trying to make it better. Because we are so confident in what we make and that is going to taste amazing, that gives us a chance to just mess about with everything else.

Just like you say “less of a restaurant, more like a weird gig with food, fun and fire”.

Z: Oh yeah. Okay, so this is what we do: lunch starts at 12:30, dinner starts at 7 pm. That's when we ask everyone to arrive, so we try and get everyone in the restaurant at broadly the same time. Then we go around and ask what they want for drinks and we sort of explain a little bit about the menu, but we don't actually give them a menu until the very end to keep everything a secret until we send all the food out.

Before serving we turn all of the lights off everywhere. That started because we were struggling to get everyone's attention. Then I went to a gig and obviously before they start, the lights go down. It made me realise that’s why they do it: when lights go down in the room, everyone's reaction is ‘oh something's happening.’

So we start by turning the lights off everywhere, then I come out to say hello to everybody, introduce myself and explain a bit about the food and how everything's gonna work. At that point I go back to the kitchen, we get the music up loud, we turn the lights back on and we start cooking. So it literally starts like a show!

Amazing! But obviously, it's not just about music because once you start serving, it's all about the food. So what makes it worthy of a Michelin star?

Z: I don't know really because Michelin is very secretive about everything. I know that we've been inspected here a number of times, but they come around and then they're very secretive about it. Then you find a picture of Casamia on their Twitter account a few weeks later! We've now retained our star for two years.

What do you think is the most important thing when creating a dish, the quality, the ingredients or the chef’s skills?

Z: I think it's all about the ingredients, so that's a massive focus here. I spent a long time looking for basically the world's best ingredients, from Japan or California or anywhere in Europe. I've been working very hard to find lots of tiny little suppliers who have amazing products. For example, you know we go up to Scotland and we go down to Cornwall to get all of our shellfish and some of our fish because that's the best place in the UK to get it.

I want people to come to Casamia and have something that they've never had before, which is the reason why we went from using the Coewall sheep that a lot of restaurants are using to then using this hogget from literally four miles down the road which, for me, it’s absolutely awesome. And it's so cool that no one else in Bristol is serving that meat because the farmer is from Belmont Estates, he’s called Henry, and he just doesn't have enough to supply anyone else.

So for me, that sort of thing is really special. The trout that you had earlier on comes from the Quantock Hills from a place called Stream Farm, we've been there a couple of times and they're awesome. But again that's something that no one else is really using because they have a very small trout farm with literally three ponds, and they don't really give it to anyone else because they smoke their own trout. So they sell most of it themselves and then they give us ten trouts a week.

So for me to be able to serve something like that and to tell the guests this is something that you won’t really be having anywhere else because it's not a big enough operation to give it to anyone else… it's really special.

We have the same relationship with the Bristol Cheesemonger. So they get this cheese called Be Moor Ewe, which they sell exclusively in their shop, but then we started selling it exclusively in Casamia. We were literally the only restaurants in the entire world that has that cheese because no one else makes it.

That's a very interesting way of doing things because what you’re putting the creative process at the centre.

Z: Yeah, and that's a huge thing for Casamia. It's a very creative space, with the food changing all the time, the projector on the wall showing off some absolutely amazing cinematography, and then we've got the music too.

What’s clear is that not only you guys are full of passion about what you do but that it also seems to make you all very happy, and a happy chef makes tasty food.

Z: It's really important to me that everyone, not just chefs, but literally everyone that works here is enjoying themselves and is happy in their lives. We're not a shouty, loud kitchen where you'll be getting screamed at all the time. You know there are a lot of kitchens where the chefs are scared to work there because anything they do wrong, they’ll get screamed at all. It’s not like that here. We work really hard to just make sure that everyone is enjoying it because I think that if you're not enjoying it, then you're not producing the best food that you can. If you're stressed, you're gonna start making mistakes and silly things happen. So a big thing that we did was that we changed the rota so that all of the chefs are now working a maximum of 48 hours which is quite cool, something that I've never come across in my ten years of cooking.

What would you say to someone who’s never had a fine dining experience? Why should they try Casamia?

Z: I think Casimia is pretty unique for the UK. I don't know of many places worldwide doing exactly what we are doing here. Because, you know, the minute you walk in, as you said yourself, it feels different. We have the lighting very low, the walls are painted black, we have quite loud music on…it’s something a little bit weird.

Quite often we have guests tell us, at the end of the meal, that they felt a little bit uncomfortable at the beginning because it was a completely new experience for them. We had a couple one time, I think it was the lady that booked and didn't tell the man. She sort of said, you know, we're going out for dinner but I’m not telling you where. So he came here and sat down and he didn't even know that it was a restaurant. It can be probably be a little bit intimidating when you sit down in a dark restaurant and you don’t know what the hell's going on because you're not given a menu. But as soon as we start there's a lot of focus on absolutely awesome food and just having fun, that’s a massive thing for me.

Going back to that thing of people enjoying themselves, it's really important for me that we are enjoying ourselves and we're not worried about whispering during service and talking quietly because the table might be able to hear us. I think whoever sat in the restaurant, should be able to hear us and see us laughing and joking because that lets them know that they can do the same. It kind of breaks that wall of like ‘oh I’m in a stuffy restaurant and I'm going to be quiet, I don't want to be too loud, I will be on my best behaviour’.

Written by Bruno Cafiso

Ciao I'm Bruno!⁠ I'm a food lover, a philosopher, a chef, a dreamer but mostly a writer. In fact, just give me a pen and a blank page and I will be at ease.⁠ I'm originally from Sicily and I try to live with less stuff and more meaning. ⁠Apart from the culinary aspect, what fascinates me about food is its social and cultural component, as even the simplest dish holds inside a universal tale of people and communities with different stories, origins and traditions.

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