'A superb little spot': Bruco, Ancoats, reviewed

After a long recuperation from a viral infection of my liver that nearly killed me, I was having a coffee with Will at Erst in Ancoats. Coming out, I noticed pavement seating outside the old Trove site, so I went for a quick nosy.

It’s now called Bruco, owned by a local feller, Ethan Harvey. It’s a YAFI. I coined that phrase over fifteen years ago. It stands for Yet Another Fucking Italian. And I went in because of the A-board outside promoting the coffee. It’s from Worker Bee in Stockport and happens to be my favourite brand.

It was midday, and I was the only one in. Half an hour later, it was three-quarters full of millennials talking media and digital, a good-looking bunch. Described as an ‘Italian Bar-Restaurant ', it’s more restaurant than bar.

Outside, the tables have a fine view of the rear of the church on the square. The tables inside are set for lunch rather than coffee and cake, which solves the problem of laptop lingering; indeed, I was going to have a swift cup of coffee and be on my way, but decided to give lunch a go.

The menu looked interesting.

A section called “Share and Nibble” with Nocerella Olives (£4) and Triple Cooked New Potatoes, Sea Salt, Rosemary and Garlic amongst others (£6, and I'm having these next time) along with Sue’s Wild Garlic Mushrooms (£8, £1 donated to breast cancer charity) made me think that there was more to this place than met the eye.

The Garlic mushrooms were ordered on the basis that I can guarantee Italian chefs will fuck these up, with little attention to detail. They are either undercooked or overcooked, not enough garlic or too much, and crap mushrooms.

Apparently this dish honours the owner’s mum, Sue, who was half Italian and obsessed with garlic mushrooms. Sue benefited from not being a chef, but a home cook. This charming mess of well-chosen mushrooms, sweated and piled into a small soup bowl, wild or not, were special. A meaningful pool of just-so garlicky, buttery liquor sloshed about; the whole dish looked and smelled of a forest floor.

It came with a thick slice of focaccia, brushed with olive oil and lightly toasted; I could have done with two of these as there is no way I was leaving any of the liquor, which by now had taken on the added flavour from the heavy sprinkling of chopped chives which made the final mopping up nothing short of bloody glorious.

I can’t drink on my heavy-duty antibiotics, but my advice is to get a glass of an old friend, Pecorino, Aude, (£10) to help the whole thing along. Its crisp notes of apple and wild flowers will work well. Not bad value either, showing sensible markup for the bottle, at £38.

The mushrooms were stewed to the point where the juices mingled with the garlic butter, but not at the expense of flavour. A well-handled old-school rendering of a dish that has delighted Southern Europeans for hundreds of years. It was rustically charming.

The next section, ‘A Little Bigger…’, offers three pasta dishes, grilled fish, meatballs “della nonna” (Italian for bollocks)  and an aged rib-eye steak. It’s a short menu.

For me, a good sign.

The Orecchiette Pasta, Fennel Sausage & Friarielli (£16) winked at me mainly because I love fennel sausage in a brothy-sauced pasta dish.  Fennel needs a (simple) pairing with heat, smoke and bitterness, producing a well-balanced, rustic dish centuries old.

Chefs will mess this up. They can’t stop messing. The fellers in this kitchen didn’t. The pasta, ‘little ears’, small discs that get slightly squished to make friends with saucing, were piled high, shot through with the crumbled sausage, mixed with sliced red chilli and gently bitter blanched and chopped Friarelli, a member of the broccoli family;  chopped tough little leaves which balances nicely with the silkiness of the pasta, and to finish off fried sliced garlic cloves were helicoptered in adding a terrific crunch along with deep bronze smokiness.

This dish was a knock-out.

At this point, I asked if I could take coffee and dolce outside. The staff were terrific; in the blink of an eye I had been manoeuvred to a good table and minutes later another Worker Bee coffee arrived with pistachio cannoli (£5) and a slice of Sicilian lemon tarte (£10).

The cannoli were authentic, using cannoli dough, fried I believe, crunchy and bubbly filled with a pistachio ricotta ‘cream’. No corners cut here. They were great. But not for the faint-hearted. Share a portion of these.

Finally, the Sicilian Lemon Tart sat in a deep-baked shortcrust; dark, crunchy and confident enough to hold its own against the sharp, silky filling. Lose the fruit on top in my opinion but keep the vanilla mascarpone. Look at your dish as a little black dress and ask yourselves this: what would Coco Chanel say?

“Take a look in the mirror before you go out, darling, and take one item off…”

Service is delightful. Chatty smiling peeps who made a slightly nervous old bloke who has had to learn to walk all over again these past six months a bit more confident and realise that he needs to get out more!

All in all, this was a superb lunch, one of those unexpected delights that leaves a smile on your face for the rest of the weekend. A great addition to Manchester.

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Bruco is on Confidential Guides