'It's important diners enjoy the experience': Nuovo busy behind the scenes for eventual reopening

For the owner of Italian restaurant Nuovo in Northampton, ensuring his diners have a positive experience when they eventually reopen is just as important as reopening itself.

Stewart Wright is preparing to welcome back customers to his Abington Street cicchetti bar as soon as the Government allows despite the lack of guidance on when that might be.

But it is a difficult balancing act between making the occasion enjoyable, keeping everyone safe and making it financially viable as well.

"The feedback from customers has been that they can't wait to get in and have an experience with us but we don't want that to be clinical," he told the Chronicle & Echo.

"No one wants to go out and be served by their dentist - that's not a dining experience so hopefully we will be able to offer something resembling as close as possible to normal as we can.

"So as many necessary hygienic steps we have to take will be done in the background."

The Nuovo team have spent the past five weekends doing takeaways but are itching to get back to doing what they love in the restaurant.

For that to happen, Stewart has invested in motion-sensitive hand sanitiser dispensers, plastic screens and even thermal cameras to monitor customers' temperatures.

Chefs and waiters will also be wearing smartwatches to check their health before and during work.

The restauranteur believes it is important to not act like police officers while also taking responsibility for the well-being of fellow customers and staff members, something which he says all restaurants should be doing anyway.

"I think most customers are very understanding and they know why we have to check people's temperatures during this situation," he said.

"But we will try to create a normal situation for people coming to dine with us rather than policing people.

"It's not a case of, 'we will find you,' it's more that we will be monitoring them for their safety and our's."

Stewart prides Nuovo on serving the best quality Italian meals using the finest ingredients he can find - and that will continue even when imports from Italy may be affected by the pandemic.

Nuovo's cicchetti style with lots of small plates means there are a lot of different ingredients to source but Stewart is certain the quality will not be affected.

"It will be determined by what I can get, the quality I can get and where I can get it from," he said.

"For example like the specialist cheeses I import from Italy - they might not be so available after all of this.

"But we will get the best we can and do the best we can with those products to make it an experience when you come to our restaurant."