IT’S like going to Rome and not checking out the Sistine
Chapel. At Salvi’s for Michelangelo
read Mozzarella. For the first time ever I’ve stepped into one of Maurizio
Salvi’s culinary outposts of his beloved Campania without sampling the limpid
creamy cheese made by his brother back in the old country. A fave, to eat in or
take away in its own bag of liquid (like a fair-won goldfish) ever since this
small enterprise opened a fewe years back.
This time even Maurizio himself isn’t around to cajole me
into sampling – he’s down with l’influenza. Giorgio Fontana, MD of the reopened
and revamped Salvis in the Corn Exchange, is doing the honours in the new
basement dining room, pouring out the Greco di Tufa as we nibble on bruschetta
with fresh tomatoes (£4.75). A mega-chic wine cooler cradles this most herbal
and minerally vivid of Southern Italian whites.
I’m a claustophobe long out of the closet. From C’est la
Vie and El Rincon to Abode and Australasia send me downstairs out of the
natural light and I feel wobbly. It didn’t matter so much on the launch night
when, drink taken, we journos commandeered the (well-lit) private wine tasting
room in the depths of the cellar. Greco-numbed, even sharing a space station
with Tim Peake wouldn’t have freaked me.
Returning, I felt the vague injustice of Corn Exchange
stalwarts such as Salvi’s and Tampopo having to extend below ground with no
central atrium while the well-heeled chain outsiders gobbled up larger spaces
and access to the atrium.
The arrival of food settled my head. None of those upstart
rivals can match Salvi’s food offering or attitude to sourcing. Intense
concentration on my plate banished the spatial ghosts in an instance.
I went for the Pasta con tonno, bottarga and stracciatella
(£12.95) – an unctuous mélange of cured fish roe, yellowfin and fresh buffalo
cheese over solid pasta shapes, dumpier than trofie (I should have asked). In
contrast, but equally sumptuous, was my wife’s special of ravioli, light as a
Capri sunrise.
The traditional pizza oven beckoned, but we resisted. The half-drunk
bottle of Greco (£35 and worth it) demanded fish: in her case, Polpo alla
Luciana (£13.95), where tenderised octopus came in a tomato sauce with capers
and black olives, perfect for mopping up with crust house bread.
The same bread (an extra batch arrived) was applied to the
plates bearing six of the best, fleshiest king prawns I’ve had since Silvio
Berlusconi was a virgin. Viva le Gamberetti Grande (£15.95) with rocket chilli
and garlic.
I look forward to dining on such simple but sublime joys of Italian food al fresco when the 40-cover dining area outside in Exchange Square kicks in. Who needs an atrium?
Salvi’s Mozzarella Bar,
Unit 22b, and Gino D’Acampo – My Restaurant, Unit
11, The Corn Exchange, Manchester, M4 3TR. 0161 827 4200.
