{"id":391113,"date":"2025-09-02T05:39:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:39:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/391113\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T05:39:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T05:39:13","slug":"i-moved-from-italy-to-manchester-after-8-years-it-finally-tastes-like-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/391113\/","title":{"rendered":"I moved from Italy to Manchester \u2013 after 8 years, it finally tastes like home"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s midweek, a very warm evening in June. Cosimo, a Neapolitan chef, is talking loudly in the open kitchen. The focaccia in front of me is as fresh and soft as in Italy, and only the sight of a car driving on the left side of the road outside brings me back to reality \u2013 and to Manchester.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m at Bruco, a sleek, modern spot in the Ancoats area \u2013 one of several Italian restaurants to have opened across the city in recent months. The name is a reference to its location: \u201cbruco\u201d means caterpillar, and here it refers to silkworms \u2013 a nod to Ancoats\u2019 history of textile manufacturing. It also alludes to a specific contrada (district) in Siena, likewise known for its connection to textiles. With Ancoats known as Little Italy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, due to an influx of Italian immigrants seeking work in the factories, it all feels fitting. The area is now Manchester\u2019s hottest dining destination for all sorts of cuisines, and while the ice cream cone was invented here by Italian Antonio Valvona in 1902, restaurants run by his compatriots can now be found all over the city.<\/p>\n

While Manchester has been known as a foodie city for some time<\/a>, but lately it\u2019s undergoing what Bruco\u2019s owner Ethan Harvey calls a \u201cfresh pasta renaissance\u201d. He explains that \u201cpeople are long past the book-length menus of traditional Italian restaurants; they want fresh, seasonal food\u201d. And I have to agree. Manchester has seen countless food trends come and go, restaurants open and close, yet Italian cuisine is still popular \u2013 so much so that London-based, Italian-inspired chains like Lina Stores, Circolo Popolare and Pizza Pilgrims have headed up the M6 and opened up shop.<\/p>\n

\"Bruco,Bruco, one of Manchester\u2019s new wave of Italian restaurants (Photo: Carl Sukonik\/The Vain Photography)<\/p>\n

I\u2019m happy to say that Italian dining in Manchester is a world away from how it was eight years ago, when I first moved here from a town near Milan. Back then, I was naively lured into restaurants with Italian-sounding names and soon discovered that the only thing resembling a taste of home was the imported breadsticks. I didn\u2019t know restaurants could legally put mushrooms in a carbonara. <\/p>\n

A year later, I attended Festa Italiana, the UK\u2019s largest Italian food festival, held annually in Manchester\u2019s Cathedral Gardens. The free, three-day event has been running since 2018, and last year its stalls and chef demos attracted more than 40,000 people. The event was founded by Maurizio Cecco, owner of Salvi\u2019s, a pair of restaurant-delis that have become a staple of the city\u2019s Italian food scene since the first opened in 2010. The Exchange Square branch is also my personal refuge when I\u2019m craving products from home \u2013 especially since Brexit has made receiving il pacco da gi\u00f9 \u2013 literally, \u201cthe box from down below\u201d, as we Italians call food parcels sent by family who don\u2019t trust we\u2019re eating properly abroad \u2013 that little bit harder.<\/p>\n

I ask Ezio, manager of Salvi\u2019s Exchange Square, what he thinks Brits love most about Italian food. \u201cSpicy stuff, like \u2019nduja\u201d, he says, glancing over at the outdoor tables, which as usual is packed with diners who\u2019ve just finished shopping or are gearing up to brave the crowds of the Arndale Centre. \u201cOh, and flavours they tried on holiday in Italy and want to enjoy here too \u2013 like truffle pesto. We can\u2019t keep it on the shelves,\u201d he tells me with a laugh. <\/p>\n

\"Salvi'sSalvi\u2019s serves authentic-tasting Italian dishes in its downstairs dining room (Photo: Salvi\u2019s)<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s right. Italian food has really taken off in Manchester. You can now find burrata, stracciatella, guanciale on its packed shelves \u2013 things I couldn\u2019t have imagined seeing not too long ago. The restaurant downstairs is probably one of the cosiest and quietest spots in town for a bite, with a pizza oven just like any you\u2019ll find in Naples, and neon-coloured drinks that will brighten even the drizzliest of Mancunian days.<\/p>\n

This evolution is echoed by Beppe Piccoli, owner of Vero Moderno \u2013 another Italian favourite in Manchester, serving Roman-style dishes which has been serving Roman-style dishes for over nine years in Salford, a short walk across the River Irwell from Deansgate. The decor is modern and the tables much bigger than average, leaving no room for misunderstandings: you will eat and drink a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cBritish customers are definitely refining their tastes\u201d, he tells me. \u201cThey\u2019re slowly moving away from Britalian dishes like carbonara smothered in cream and bacon and starting to try original Italian recipes \u2013 even if they don\u2019t always know what they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RavioliRavioli in tomato sauce at Vero Moderno (Photo: Vero Moderno)<\/p>\n

As we speak, a group of five Irish lads sits down at the table next to ours, excitedly discussing the menu, which includes specialities like maltagliati (chopped pasta with asparagus in a pepper sauce) and suppli\u2019 di riso (Roman arancini filled with beef ragu and mozzarella), but also mini burgers. Beppe looks at me and says: \u201cStill, we need to cater to their tastes \u2013 we are in England, after all\u201d, before rushing behind the bar to prepare cocktails for the Saturday bottomless brunch menu. That\u2019s something I\u2019ve never quite understood, even after years of living here. Surely, bottomless food is better than bottomless drinks. Perhaps I\u2019m just not that British yet.<\/p>\n

Despite strides forward in offering classic Italian dishes, the \u201cBritalianisation\u201d of the cuisine in Manchester is undeniable. From Vero Moderno\u2019s brunch to Bruco\u2019s \u201cFull Italian\u201d panuozzo \u2013 a hybrid of a full English breakfast and a Neapolitan-style sandwich \u2013 experimentation is clearly welcome. \u201cI have to admit, until we added \u2018Italian pizza sandwich\u2019 next to panuozzo, no one really ordered it,\u201d Ethan tells me. \u201cBut once we did, it was a huge success.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s not just about breakfast or brunch. A new pizzeria called Forbici \u2013 meaning scissors in Italian, a nod to how we often cut pizza back home \u2013 opened in central Manchester in April and has really embraced local ingredients, regularly topping their pizzas with local ingredients like Bury black pudding. One upon a time that would have been a shock, but nothing really surprises me anymore. If anything, riffs like this on my country\u2019s cuisine excite me. Because while Italy will always be home, Manchester is starting to taste a lot like it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s midweek, a very warm evening in June. Cosimo, a Neapolitan chef, is talking loudly in the open…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391114,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8813],"tags":[748,7807,393,1203,24357,4884,2199,2465,280,16,24358,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-391113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manchester","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-dining","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-food","12":"tag-food-travel","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-italy","15":"tag-manchester","16":"tag-restaurants","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-uk-travel","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115133098903395809","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391113\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}