It’s early evening on Stainbeck Road and Culto, Meanwood’s long-running pizzeria, is quiet. But it doesn’t stay that way for long. Claire Atkinson, the mother of one of Culto’s waitresses, arrives, and she’s here to make a scene.
As two elderly diners look on, astonished, she demands that the restaurant’s director, Alfio Trovato, come out to explain why 17-year-old Ruby has around £100 missing from her July paycheque.
It’s not just this month. Ruby and a fellow waitress have been underpaid before, each time having to argue for their full wages — and they never see any of the staff tips, Claire says. Not only that, but after Ruby asked Alfio for her full pay earlier this evening, he fired her.
Alfio starts waving timesheets about, saying he’ll check the record, and tries to usher Claire into an office, but she’s having none of it. She’s talking “very very nicely,” she says, but she’s fired up and won’t leave until Ruby and the other waitress have their pay, right now.
She leaves clutching the missing cash. But she’s not done. When she gets home, she takes straight to TikTok. That was last Friday — by now, the video has racked up more than 100,000 views, and is the talk of the Meanwood Community Chat Facebook group.
By the time I get to Meanwood the following Tuesday, the word is everywhere. When I pop into nearby pubs and cafes, I don’t have to explain why I’m interested in Culto. But as I continued to dig into what was once revered among the best pizza joints in the city, more and more strange details emerge.
'If you betray me like that, I don’t need you any more'
A front-of-house manager greets me warmly when I arrive in Culto’s dining room. The restaurant is quiet, other than the strains of generic chill-out muzak, interrupted periodically by adverts urging an upgrade to Spotify Premium. I’m the only customer — not unusual for any restaurant at 6pm on a Tuesday, but the undercurrent is tense. Staff steal glimpses at me; from the kitchen, I hear a snippet of conversation: “... if you’re going to post stuff on social media …”
Alfio immediately agrees to talk when I ask, and gestures in a gentlemanly fashion for me to sit down at another table together. Of the TikTok, he says sorrowfully, “the best response is nothing.” He understands that mothers can be overprotective, he says. “I respect everybody, I love everybody. For me, nothing happened — just forgive and forget.” The magnanimity is palpable. But what actually happened with the money?
“Do you think I don’t pay?” he asks. “I pay.” It may in part be due to English being a second language, but he also interrupts a lot — it’s hard to get a completely clear answer. He admits he has accidentally underpaid Ruby twice before this. “Mistakes can happen in any company,” he says. He denies ever pocketing tips.
As for Ruby — who he refers to throughout as “the little girl” — he says: “I don’t sack her for this.”
“She tells me, ‘if you don’t pay, I don’t come in.’” Ruby has told me it was her fellow waitress who said she didn’t want to take on more shifts until the discrepancy was addressed. Either way, Alfio says he responded: “If you betray me like that, I don’t need you any more.” Which does sound pretty much like sacking them for this.
Throughout our conversation, Alfio has had the air of a doting parent, wounded by a tearaway child. Until I ask:
“What’s your association with Elvi Drizi?”
Alfio places both hands on the table and stands abruptly, indicating the conversation is over. I stay seated.
He really doesn’t want to talk about Elvi Drizi.
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