When Jacqueline Nicosia arrived in Italy, she was ready for a break. She didn’t know the trip would change her life. After studying finance in university, then spending a year in Japan teaching English, she went to visit family in Milazzo, a Sicilian town with a population of just over 30,000. Deciding to stay for the summer of 2008, she met her future husband, Roberto Marotta. By the end of 2009, they had moved to Canada. Their son was born a few years later, followed in 2015 by their first restaurant, Ardo, named after baby Leonardo’s attempt at saying his own name. At the same time, the couple developed an importing business, Vivi Imports, to bring in and sell the small-batch Italian food products — olive oil, pistachio pesto, tuna and orange spread, pepperoncini — highlighted in their restaurant. Soon came another child, and another restaurant. Vivienne was born on time, in 2017. But Dova was scheduled to launch in the spring of 2020, which is when you-know-what happened. Pivoting to the familiar Canadian collection of revenue streams — meal kits, takeout, delivery, etc. — they were able to open Dova by August, just weeks before the province suspended indoor dining again.
A year later, on a sweltering 40°C (that’s 104°F) Monday morning in Toronto, the couple spoke with me about fish sauce, marriage, and operating a restaurant without enough bodies.
What defines Sicilian food?
Roberto: We are lucky to have an island that is, yes, surrounded by the sea. But it also has the highest active volcano (Mount Etna) in Europe, where you can find wild porcini, wild boar, wild rabbit. Plus all the influence of African spices and trade from the old days. Sicilian food is based on thousands of years’ influence from all over the Mediterranean. So it’s very complex. Not just based on the seafood.
Jacqueline Nicosia and Roberto Marotta are the wife-husband team behind Toronto restaurants Dova and Ardo. Photo: Renee Suen
What kind of dishes would you eat in Sicily that you wouldn’t see anywhere else in Italy?
Roberto: Pasta con le sarde. Pasta with sardines. There are raisins, saffron, wild fennel pollen. That’s a very unique dish.
I was in Cetara, a town on the south coast of Amalfi. They used a liquid quite heavily. Colatura, very similar to the fermented fish sauce found in south Asian cuisines. Is that part of Sicilian cooking too?
Roberto: We have it in Sicily too. Colatura is pretty much the essential oil extracted from the sardine. Like Cetara, in Sicily we have facilities that are 300 years old, to process, preserve, and salt sardines and anchovies. Another thing we have, quite similar, though a completely different approach, is the bottarga [salt-cured fish roe, often grated over a finished dish]. It’s different from the mullet bottarga that comes from Sardinia. These have started to become a delicacy. In the old days, the interior of the tuna was discarded or given to the worker. They started to salt the eggs and air dry it. In the old days you could buy it with nothing. Now it is maybe 200 euro a kilo.
The opening of Dova was delayed by Covid. What kind of hit was that for you?
Roberto: In the beginning it was going to be a couple months. It became six months and nine months. We reinvented what we do to pay some of the bills, without getting any support from the government because we didn’t qualify [showing year-over-year revenue drops was necessary for subsidies, and not possible for new businesses]. We had a very difficult time. After investing all this money and not knowing what was going to happen.
Like everyone else, you are now hiring in a marketplace with not enough workers. Can you tell me about your staffing numbers?
Roberto: We have one third what we had pre-pandemic.
Are you able to execute the way you want with this skeleton crew?
Roberto: We condensed our menu. And we limited the number of reservations.
Jacqueline: Also with our staff, we’ve cut down on the number of days we’re open. Because there needs to be the right balance between work and life.
Pesce spada. Photo: Rick O'Brien
Your kids are now eight and four. What has it been like juggling parenting and running the restaurant as a couple?
Jacqueline: It’s been hard with the reopening. Usually I’m with the kids in the evening. Whatever I need to do with the restaurant is done during the day. But us being short-staffed, both of us have been at the restaurant day in and day out. We’ve gotten a lot of help from my parents. But it’s hard for the kids too. Because they don’t really see us too much. It has not been easy. But we’re hoping that in September, with some additions to the team, we’ll turn that around.
When do you get to see your kids?
Jacqueline: [laughs] We make sure to find time. You have to. That’s also a part of why we’re not going to open on certain days.
Roberto: Cooking with the kids is important. Trying to engage them in simple things. We made gnocchi. We’re lucky that the kids are exposed to nice ingredients. It’s nice to see how they recognize a good olive oil from an average olive oil. Using this time in a constructive way, it’s important.
Jacqueline: Our daughter right now is in preschool. Today we didn’t take her and we’re going to surprise them and take them to a pool and spend the day with them.
You’ve been working together for almost a decade. What advice do you have for couples who’ve been sharing a workspace from home for the past year?
Jacqueline: It’s been a struggle for couples over the last year and a half. We’ve found ways to make time for ourselves. Away from each other, away from the kids.
Roberto: Go for a run in the morning. One hour for you and one for your wife. That’ll work.
Jacqueline: We did that. But also try to find someone to watch your kids, for even an hour, so the two of you can go to have a meal together. Phones down. Don’t talk about work or the pandemic.