We had a chat with Izzy England from Fatto A Mano, a popular pizzeria with locations in Brighton and London. Izzy is a one-woman band managing the marketing for Fatto A Mano. In our interview, she discusses the evolution of marketing in the hospitality industry, contrasting it with her experiences at Polpo seven years ago. For Izzy, marketing is an all-encompassing and exciting role where no two days are the same. Her insights shed light on the dynamic and ever-changing nature of hospitality marketing.
What do you like about the Fatto a Mano brand?
The team culture and the level of care that goes into the food and ingredients is genuinely next level.
It’s still very much a founder-led business, I joined just over a year ago and couldn’t believe how long my colleagues had been with the business – once you join Fatto, you don’t leave! At Fatto, everyone has a love for their job and that shines through in the experience and service we can provide our guests.
Please share a whistle stop tour of your career.
I studied fashion at university and moved to London with a certain determination that I was going to be in the industry working in PR… I soon became disillusioned and fell in love with hospitality as I had a weekend job working in a restaurant/ nightclub called The Bathhouse.
I’d maître d’ or work on the door doing the guestlist and I soon realised that I wanted to be in hospitality forever. Finishing uni coincided with my bosses wanting to move to Brighton to open a new venue and asked me to come with them… I did, and loved being a part of the set up, but ultimately I wasn’t ready to move back permanently.
I needed a job in London and had happened to love a recent meal I’d had at Polpo, so I got in touch with the founder, Russell Norman, with an email titled I WANT TO WORK FOR YOU.
I started as Events Manager the following week. I was at Polpo for 7 years, and during that time I progressed from events manager to marketing lead. I left to go freelance, which was going well until the dreaded c-word of 2020 hit…
As a result of the pandemic I had to help with my family clothing business, before being able to return to the hospitality industry which is where my heart is.
How has marketing changed for you during your career and how have you seen marketing evolve?
Two words, SOCIAL MEDIA! When I started at Polpo the brand was celebrated for being the first small-budget opening that had utilised social media for launch hype. That social media tool was Twitter, which makes me feel a million years old now. At that time, Instagram was a fresh and organic platform, and we’d spontaneously capture content in the restaurants with little planning and no worry of having to please any algorithms. Now everything has to be a lot slicker, planned and video-led. It takes a lot more work, but does mean that creativity has to be pushed.
This challenge can be exciting and rewarding.
Is there any advice you can offer aspiring marketing professionals in the hospitality industry?
You have to love people and to not take things too seriously.
Ultimately, hospitality is all about creating an atmosphere and experience that guests remember and leave feeling looked after… if you’re in it for the right reasons and keep this in mind then you can have so much fun with it. It can feel like the best industry in the world.
When dining out in Brighton or Sussex, where would you visit for brunch and dinner and why?
If I have the opportunity for a lazy brunch then it would take a lot for me to leave my flat as marmite soldiers and boiled eggs with a strong cup of tea on my sofa is actual heaven (though Cafe Rust and Oeuf are both excellent). Bincho Yakitori for dinner, hands down… every time I go it gets better.
Sitting at the counter, getting a bit silly from cold sake and ordering your way through the menu is one of life’s greatest joys.
What is a typical day for you?
There are no typical days! For example, today I am in our office with my head in my laptop. In two days time, I will be supporting our Preston Circus pizzeria for Pride celebrations. In five days time I will be visiting a supplier in Devon to see how they rope-grow mussels that we’re planning to use on an upcoming pizza special. In one month’s time we will be heading to Paris to support our paralympic table tennis champions and their quest for gold. It’s all very varied and wonderful.
What plans do you have in the next 6 months?
We’ll be making a very exciting announcement soon, which will be taking up a lot of my time (but for now my lips are sealed!.) We’ve got a big focus on our specials and working with some very exciting suppliers and collaborations.
We’re hungry to do even more with the community and our hearts are very focused on supporting our charity partnerships to go from strength to strength.
How does Fatto a Mano help the local community?
Community is everything to us.
We wouldn’t exist without the amazing people, groups and neighbours that surround us, so it only feels right to give back where we can. We support local charities, the main partnership being with Brighton Table Tennis Club (BTTC). They do amazing work supporting people of all ages, it’s an inclusive club that’s based around the principles of building friendships and promoting exercise in a safe and nurturing space. The BTTC community welcomes everyone – disability groups, refugees, people with parkinsons… the list goes on. Their inclusive, open door attitude has created the most magical and infectious environment. We feel very privileged that we can help them.
What’s Fatto a Mano’s involvement with local charities such as the Table Tennis Club, and The Real Junk Food Project?
My boss, Rupert, heard about what Brighton Table Tennis Club were doing and was keen on us supporting them. To think about how we could support the club was one of the first conversations Rupert and I had when I started.
I was enthusiastic and keen as my own brother, Danny, was a regular player partaking in one of their weekly disability sessions.
The club invited us for an evening of making pizzas and playing table tennis, and the partnership has gone from strength to strength ever since. It’s a very natural relationship, we have similar values and an easy-going and enthusiastic way of working together. We’ve held several fundraiser events and campaigns with them, from having a twenty foot Christmas tree outside our Hove pizzeria decorated with ping pong bats for guests to write festive messages, to hosting an auction to help fund their trip to the Paralympic Games in Paris, to countless fun community events. We’re helping them with the opening of their new centre and will do anything and everything to help spread the word about this phenomenal club.
Brighton Table Tennis Club have very strong ties to The Real Junk Food Project as they’re both based at The Fitzherbert Hub in Kemptown, so it felt natural to build a partnership with them also. We organised events to raise money to buy them a pizza oven, and we’re continuing to train their team so they can feed as many people as possible with pizzas from the hub.
We’re in awe of all the work the charities do, and we’re excited to do more with them in the future.
