Franco Manca team to open pasta restaurant this autumn
Called Strozzapreti, it is the brainchild of Franco Manca co-founder a Bridget Hugo, ‘pasta guru’ Andrea Beccaceci and restaurateur Giuseppe Mascoli, and will open in September at KERB’s Seven Dials Market in Covent Garden.
Following in the footsteps of Franco Manca, Strozzapreti will have a focus on using high quality but good value ingredients to offer affordability. The menu will include simple antipasti and twists on classic Italian pudding ingredients, with fresh pasta made from durum flour and organic English spelt.
Highlights will include the Strozzapreti four cheese fonduta with herb infused oil; and pappardelle with rabbit ragu and marsala livers. The traditional ‘no cheese with fish’ rulebook is thrown out for a dish that combines mussels and pecorino with spaghetti and datterini gialli.
“Tasting and designing is the most creative and fun part of producing food and I’ve taken a lot of inspiration working with Beccaceci and Mascoli to establish these entirely new pasta dishes,” says Hugo. “After a decade working in Italian cooking, I am still always so impressed with how Italians seem to know better than anyone what good ingredients taste like and how to make them work in a simple and healthy way.”
Seven Dials Market is housed within the 19th century Thomas Neal’s Warehouse and has been designed to occupy the space between street food and full-service restaurant experience, and is one of a number of food halls to open in the capital in the coming months. It will follow on the heels of the newly opened Arcade Food Theatre in London’s Centre Point and will open at a similar time to the Market Halls Oxford Street, in the former BHS building.
Other traders confirmed at the site include Club Mexicana, Yum Bun, INK, Square Root, Rice Guys and the world’s first cheese conveyor belt restaurant Pick & Cheese.
