IT started with a modest yet finely proportioned mozzarella bar and now there's a five foot mortadella filling whole rooms. You might dream about the mozzarella and have nightmares about the mortadella, so it's a relief when the mortadella starts to be sliced and turned into tasty chunks of yielding pork.
Provenance of ingredients and precision in choosing them will be the key once more.
This beast of a thing is present to bear witness to Salvi's, the excellent purveyor of artisan (yeah, let's use the buzzword) Italian food, which is about to go big in the Corn Exchange. This is a return home for Salvi's which also has two outlets, a Salvi's Cucina and a Salvi's Rosticceria on John Dalton Street.
At a preview event in Cucina, Mauricio Cecco, the proprietor, explained the plans. Everything is going to be magnified. Instead of about ten bar stools looking for a fight in a telephone box, this time there'll be 120 covers over a ground floor and basement with 40 more on a terrace outside. Here's our original enthusiastic review from 2012 - click here.
The new Corn Exchange operation will still incorporate a deli with a stand-out range of Italian food and drink but the restaurant will be the focus. For diners there'll be the celebrated and beautifully presented deli platters overflowing with cheeses, cured meats, salad and cooked veg. The keynote fresh-as-a-daisy pasta dishes will feature prominently, as will pizzas, but the added space and expanded kitchen will allow room for a more varied range of main courses.
Naples-born Maurizio Cecco and his wife Claire will open the doors of their expanded restaurant towards the end of August. Provenance of ingredients and precision in choosing them will be the key once more. It's this quality and the classic southern Italian recipes (often from Maurizio's own mum, Teresa) which has elevated Salvi's above so many Italian-by-numbers restaurants in the region.
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The massive mortadella at an unfortunate angle
Maurizio, Teresa, Claire There is a danger in this expansion of course, namely that Salvi's small but prefectly formed trio of restaurants and casual dining experiences over-stretches itself or loses charm. Given the careful management and attention to detail of the Ceccos this shouldn't happen. As Maurizio himself says, "I don't want to change the character of what we do at Salvi's, but in the Corn Exchange we have the opportunity and space to push things a little bit further, try some more things, while always making sure we preserve the best of what our customers appreciate now."
There will be two specialist areas in the expanded Corn Exchange restaurant: a wine room and a mozzarella room. The former will be devoted to Italian wines and available for parties and tasting and food matching sessions. The latter will be a temple for Salvi’s signature product with mozzarella masterclasses and tastings.
Roll on August. We have confidence in Maurizio and team to deliver another hit for the city.
