TWO brothers from Ealing, whose family used to own popular restaurants around London, have launched their own home catering business.

Fabio and Sergio Annecchiarico's family used to own Chelsea Kitchen along with the Stockpot Restaurants that were very popular throughout the Capital for over four decades.

They sold their last restaurant in 2017 however and sought employment elsewhere.

For three years they worked in a number of restaurants across London, until last month they launched their home catering business, The Stockpot Brothers.

Fabio told Nub News: "We grew up in our father's restaurants, it's all we've ever known.

"When we sold the last restaurant in 2017 and went to work elsewhere, we were shocked to see that in some cases restaurants would buy their food pre-made and all the chefs have to do is just warm it up."

His brother, Sergio added: "It's just not the same, the food isn't as fresh, it isn't as good nowadays and that's what we want to change, to bring back better quality food, which we know we make.

"The pandemic actually presented us with the opportunity to start something fresh just the two of us, so we thought 'why not, let's do it.'"

Ever since they were young and first started working at their father's restaurants, the two brothers have had a separate set of skills and compliment each other well.

"Fabio is great with all the admin and organisation stuff, he would work on the floor dealing with customers, whereas I took a back seat doing all the cooking and focusing on the food," said Sergio.

That has carried on to their new business endeavour as well, with Sergio being the chef in charge of the recipes and preparing the food, while Fabio is in charge of the client facing side of the business, dealing with orders and delivering the food.

Although the brothers are the sons of Italian immigrants and are heavily influenced by Italian and Neapolitan cuisine in particular, their menu is international.

Sergio said: "Our cuisine has been influenced by all the chefs we've worked with, for example the Moussaka dish was introduced to me by a Greek chef that I worked very closely with and is now one of my favourite dishes."

Sergio does all the cooking in his brother's 'perfect' kitchen – as he describes it – from his house in Acton and they deliver to local postcodes across Ealing and Chiswick on Thursday, Friday and Saturdays between 4pm and 9pm (apart from this week and next week when deliveries are made on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday).

Fabio added: "I really enjoy delivering the food and chatting with our customers, I like getting to know and building a relationship with them, I treat it the same as a restaurant, the service is just as important as the food."

Since their launch in November, things have been going really well for the pair, who now plan to open their first Stockpot Brothers restaurant somewhere in Ealing in the new year.