CAVIAR at cost price, Coravin gadgets to give you the chance to sample by the glass Italy’s finest wines and specialist counters devoted to meat, fish and cheese plus a domed copper pizza oven that’s a star attraction in its own right – the revamped flagship Piccolino is a world away from its previous dowdy self.
Oh, and in all this dramatic expansion (they annexed next door) they have retained a major asset, Ettore Cicchetti as front of house, where he has been since Individual Restaurants launched here in Clarence Street in 2003. Croma across the road had arrived a couple of years earlier; the original San Carlo set up in 2004. Italian old wave now.
So Ettore has seen it all, but he has never skippered an operation quite like Piccolino Caffe Grande, a luxury liner of an all day eaterie, marking the start of the Italian fightback against all those flash Spanish flavours of the month, Iberica, El Gato Negro and the rest.
On TOM’s maiden voyage on the Caffe Grande, open under a week, breakfast service not yet available, it was obvious it has captured punters’ imagination. Amid all the lunchtime bustle Ettore found us a spot in the original main dining room now transformed by bespoke chandeliers, brass and marble, and striking light blue leather seating, inspired by legendary Italian yacht builder Riva. It all looks like £1.3m well spent. But what of the food and drink offering? Especially that bargain Beluga?
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Well that comes in at £80 for 30g; we settled for the more modest Caspian Sea classic
Iscietra at £30. It comes with toast and sprinkles of parsley, onion and egg on the side. To accompany: three native oysters, Essex’s finest from Maldon, Blackwater and Mersea Island, each £2. Rather than Champagne, a glass of Jermann’s Vintage Tunina from Friuli did the trick. It’s a blend of sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, ribolla gaia and malvasia istriania. A quite gorgeous, aromatic white, £65 a bottle but made affordable by the glass by that Coravin device, where a needle through the cork siphons of the wine replacing it with a blanket of argon gas. Needle our, resealed the wine left will keep for up to a month.
The Coravin allowed me to taste Foradori’s Granato, a vibrant Teroldego red, also from the north east, this time Trentino, and finally heady but velvety Radici Taurasi from Campania, one of the South’s finest reds. Neither comes cheap by the bottle.
All these wines were indicative of a list that encompasses the best producers across Italy’s multifarious ‘lesser’ regions, though if you need the Supertuscan buzz there is the inevitable Tignanello and Sassicaia and big names from elsewhere such as Gaja, Biondi-Santi and the original ‘Mr Amarone’ Quintarelli.
Certainly Piccolino head sommelier Dario Barbato and regional wine sommelier Gabriele Allessandoni (pictured using the Coravin) have assembled a wine list that’s at least the equal of Rosso and San Carlo and I welcome the ‘wine guru’ badges on staff who have been trained to recommend wine and food matches.
The Taurasi was certainly a perfect match for 300g of seared Creekstone farm beef from Kansas, an odd meat out in a mainly British-reared grass fed Black Abdereen Angus roster. Fish looks good, too. A few hand-dived scallops we slipped in were a point.
The day was too old to test the 40-cover outside terrace overlooking Albert Square and we await further extensions into the basement for private dining and wine tasting rooms with separate cocktail bar.
As it stands, the Caffe Grande looks just grand, feeling like it has been there for ever. Quite an achievement. Viva Italia.
Piccolino, 8 Clarence St, Manchester M2 4DW. 0161 835 9860.
