Andrew Kay will not be doing the Macarena but he will be doing Maccheroni
That’s amore
When the sun hits the sky like a big pizza pie – that’s amore, or so sang Dean Martin. To be honest, I’m not a big pizza fan and never have been. Too often it disappoints and too often it costs too much, as my mum says – ‘It’s just la-di-da cheese on toast is pizza!’. She may be overdamming there and I have to confess that of late I have indulged in rather more pizzas than ever before and not all of them very good – simply a speedy way to take on fuel.
Talking of which, speedy ways of taking on fuel, I was rather ambiguous about Maccheroni when I first saw it. The branding was brash and fasta pasta did not strike me as being that appealing. I can make fasta pasta at home in no time, so what was there to lure me in?
Well, last week I went along to meet the man behind the concept here in the UK: Guiseppe Fontani. Signor Fontani is as dapper an Italian as you are ever likely to meet – and as passionate about food as almost every Italian I have met, and let me tell you, they can be pretty passionate. Maccheroni opened rather quietly and initially was about fast food, but now the model has been changed. The company realised that the good people of Brighton and Hove are rather discerning about their food, well some of us are, and that is why they are making massive changes before opening a second branch, this time in London which they see as having a similar demographic.
Giuseppe was keen to show me what they are now about so he ordered a selection of dishes for me to try. I started with an apple juice, alarmingly bright green in colour but as crisp and tasty as the fresh fruit. First out was a trencher of cold meats and cheese served with mostarda and honey. The ham was perfect, the salami and coppa sweet and soft to the tooth, and the fruits preserved in mustard syrup had my tongue dancing with joy. The buffalo mozzarella was a squidgy reminder that we should never accept anything less and the hard cheeses did that lovely salt crystal thing that I like so much.
Next came some deep-fried treats amongst which a mozzarella in carrozza and an arancini reminded me how good those little dishes can be when made with care and passion. Don’t get me wrong, this is not fine dining but at the same time it’s not your conventional idea of fast food. In fact, the Italian family behind the project own a Michelin starred restaurant in Rome and are passionate about the slow food movement – and much of the food hails from that great resource.
Two squares of pizza, looking exactly like the pizza that I bought on the streets of Venice 30 years ago, arrived next and I took a taste of each. Good I thought, but if Guiseppe was planning pasta then I needed to hold back for fear of peaking too soon.
And next out was indeed spaghetti Bolognese, possibly the most abused food of all time. I remember once receiving a letter from a reader offering me their recipe; how I laughed as I read the instructions – ‘Into one tin of condensed tomato soup stir one packet of dried oxtail soup powder’. Imagine what that must taste like! Yuck, yuck, yuck!
The real Bolognese appears in so many books in so many different forms that it really is very hard to know what the authentic dish should be made of or indeed taste like. The Maccheroni dish is made of minced veal and pork, is light in colour and packed with flavour. I liked it a lot and especially that it was not, as so often I find in Italian restaurants in the UK, drowned in sauce.
Giuseppe was desperate for me to try his desserts but I simply had no space, but they did look very good and like everything else I saw and tasted, very sensibly priced.
Maccheroni 2 will open very soon in London and with something of a make-over to reflect the quality of the food and not suggest that this is a low grade pizza and pasta joint.
You can eat in or take-away, and they have a fine range of deli items too which they also make up into hampers, perfect for gifts at any time of the year. I left Maccheroni full and waddling, and I promise you, I really had only nibbled round the edges of what I discovered to be very good food indeed.
Maccheroni Pasta Italiana, 55 Queens Road, Brighton BN1 3XD, 01273 748688,
www.maccheronibrighton.co.uk
