NO one does food quite like the Italians and this winter Harvey Nichols is celebrating the country’s many culinary delights. Check out their Second Floor delicatessen in their city centre store for a range of boutique foodstuffs imported specially for Britalia, a a global campaign celebrating the best of Italian style and culture.
The winterlong celebration has been kickstarted by the House of Peroni. Centred on the theme of ‘Amare l’Italia’ (For the love of Italy), the famous beer brand has been staging a range of immersive events including pasta making classes and Negroni masterclass where the brand’s master mixologist Simone Caporale incorporated Peroni into the classic cocktail.
Stand-out, though, has to be A Private Dining Experience, a five course feasting menu created by acclaimed chef Francesco Mazzei. It costs £65 a head and filters the rustic food of Francesco’s native Calabria through the sophisticated focus of his Mayfair restaurant Sartoria. Guests gather round a communal table, sharing a huge range of Mezzogiorne-style antipasti and are then served liquorice-cured baccala (salt cod, pictured) and a roasted lamb main by the Second Floor’s head chef Matthew Horsfield and his team.
The feasting menu is available each evening until Friday, November 11. For the weekend (12th and 13th) from 11am-3pm Francesco’s take on an Italian brunch will be served in the Second Floor Brassiere. Dishes include Purgatorio (spicy baked eggs with nduja), Gratin di Asparagi (gratin of asparagus with duck eggs and Grana Padano), along with the show-stopping Un Colpo All'Italiana – translated as the ‘Italian Job’ – an Italian interpretation on the full English.
House of Peroni’s Amare L’Italia, Harvey Nichols, 21 Cathedral Approach, Manchester M1 1AD. 0161 828 8888.
