It’s been a mild couple of months but we’ve still moved on from salads to enjoy warming, wholesome dishes of meat, vegetables and Italian gravy!

So we asked Executive Chef Filippo Pagani to share one of his hearty winter creations, full of goodness and perfect for the darker, colder nights.

Ossobuco con Gnocco Alla Romana – Veal Shin with Gnocchi

Ingredients (per person):

• 450g Lamb shin with bone
• 1 Lemon
• 130g Chopped onion
• 20g Flour
• 10g Olive oil
• 20g Cooking oil
• 50g Chopped celery
• 40g Chopped carrots
• 30g Red wine
• 1 Bay leaf
• 5g Garlic
• 6g Parsley
• 20g Tomato sauce
• Parmesan Cheese, grated

Method:

Cover the meat in the flour and sauté in the pan with some olive oil. Once the lamb is beginning to colour add the red wine and allow to cook through.
In another pan, gently heat some olive oil and then add the carrots, celery, onion and bay leaf. After a couple of minutes add the tomato sauce and simmer for at least 10 mins.
Pour the tomato sauce mixture over the lamb shin, cover with a lid and cook in the oven at 180 degrees for approximately 45 mins.
Mix some parsley with garlic and lemon zest.
Take the meat out of the oven and cover the bone marrow with this parsley, garlic and lemon mixture. Place back in the oven for few minutes.
Boil some water in a saucepan and add a pinch of salt and black pepper. Start to add the semolina flour slowly and allow to cook (making gnocchi).
Spread the cooked mixture on a metal surface and let it cool for few minutes. Cut the gnocchi with a ring that makes pieces of 50 gr. Cover them with some grated Parmesan and allow to crispen under the grill.
Serve the meat with its sauce along with the gnoccho Romano.

Tweet us a photograph of your dish to @SanCarlo_Group

Italians love festivals and the ending of the old year and beginning of the new year, Il Capodanno, is a great time to celebrate in Italy.

It’s also a great time to celebrate in the UK, if you choose to see in 2016 in San Carlo style, with our superb five-course menu available at our restaurants nationwide.

As with most Italian celebrations, food plays a major role at New Year, so gather your and family and friends together for a fabulous feast.

From Bristol to Birmingham and Leicester to Leeds, options on the set New Year’s Eve dinner menu include Tagliolini Con Aragosta, Special egg pasta from Venice cooked with lobster, brandy, cream and with a hint of tomato; Seabass Signor Sassi, Pan fried seabass fillets white wine and garlic, seasonal winter mushrooms and a choice of homemade Italian desserts.

Our Christmas lunches and dinners are filling up fast so if you’d like to celebrate with San Carlo this festive season, don’t delay in booking your table.

Come in from the cold and try our special selection of seasonal cocktails bursting with festive flavours and now available at Bottega Manchester.

To complement Selfridges’ ‘Journey to the Stars’ Christmas theme for 2015, our mixologists have created five ‘astrology’ refreshments, each named after a star constellation, for the restaurant and bar on Level 2 of the luxury designer store in Exchange Square.

Alpheratz, Andromeda’s brightest star is based on a Black Forest Gateaux, rich, creamy and more-ish … Christmas is the time for indulgence after all!

The Centaurus is a real decadent drink of Buffalo trace, gingerbread syrup, butterscotch syrup, lemon juice and Agave, served with a side of Amaretto biscuits.

Asta, Libran and Sagittarius also ‘star’ on the new cocktail menu – and all are ready to be prepared and served by our Italian bar team at Bottega.

On top of its chic refurbishment, Cicchetti Manchester has launched its new winter menu, hosting a media lunch for more than 10 of the city’s well-known press and restaurant critics.

As with all of our food, dishes have been created from the freshest seasonal ingredients sourced directly from the markets of Milan and showcase the very finest in regional Italian cuisine.

The winter offering features a mix of classic favourites such as pigeon breast paté with black truffle and toasted Altamura bread and exciting additions including Venetian cod baked in an iron pot with onions and parmesan and Bruschetta with pumpkin, onion and salted ricotta.

San Carlo Cicchetti reinterprets the delightful Venetian culinary custom of cicchetti; delicious small plate dishes designed to share or eat alone. The Autumn/Winter menu is available now in Cicchetti and Fumo, Manchester.

New dishes include:

• Venetian Salt cod croquettes with lemon mayonnaise
• Salmon and beetroot Carpaccio with pistachio pesto
• Pappardelle Castagne with wild boar ragu & chestnut
• Slow roasted pork belly with winter spices, potato and cabbage
• Purple broccoli fried with onions, breadcrumbs, garlic and Altamura bread

And specials:

• Pumpkin & truffle risotto
• Venison with pearl barley, onion and Parmesan
• Cheese and truffle dumplings served in a chicken broth
• Fried small Sicilian red prawns with whitebait zucchini

Feedback has been positive with fabulous comments.  Read some of the reviews here:

Viva Manchester

Taste of Manchester

We look forward to welcoming you to the all new Cicchetti Manchester soon!

Cicchetti Manchester has been refurbished this month, giving the stylish bar and Italian tapas restaurant a sparkling new look for Winter.

Opening on 15th November 2010, located on the Ground Floor of House of Fraser, the Manchester venue was the first to launch under the San Carlo Group Cicchetti brand – and since that day five years ago, there’s rarely been a spare stool at the exquisite Italian marble bar.

Those iconic yellow stools are now a light aqua blue – in line with our Bottega restaurant, cocktail and Champagne bar at Selfridges, Manchester and Cicchetti Covent Garden – and the all-day dining venue has been given a light and airy, yet warm and welcoming contemporary update.

San Carlo Group is celebrating this month as it marks 23 years since the opening of its first restaurant – a humble 20-table San Carlo in Birmingham city centre.

Our family-run Italian business was founded with the launch of San Carlo in Temple Street on 23rd November 1992 and we are proud to now be a £50million empire, employing more than 1,000 people and boasting a portfolio of 16 restaurants across the UK. We also have international interests in Kuwait, Bangkok and, as of next month, Doha, Qatar.

Since opening its doors, our award-winning San Carlo Birmingham has served almost two million diners, including a host of celebrities and showbiz stars, and Chairman Carlo Distefano, admits he still can’t quite believe what a great success the business is.

San Carlo Birmingham is now a 132-cover restaurant and bar split over two floors. In 2012, the Group opened its second operation in Birmingham Fumo restaurant, cocktail bar and late lounge in Waterloo Street.

Take a sip from the witch’s cauldron this Halloween with the ‘Death of a Samurai’; a deliciously original cocktail from the expert mixologists at San Carlo Fumo.

With Midori liqueur as a base, alongside a mix of tequila and fresh lime juice, the drink is given a final spooky flourish of red ‘blood’ around the glass – perfect for a party this All Hallows’ Eve.  So why not come down and try it?

Ingredients:

• Midori
• Excellia Reposado Tequila
• Pistachio sugar
• Fresh lime juice

Method:

Mix all ingredients, shake with ice and strain into a coupette glass.

Garnish:

To make the ‘blood’, combine 3:1 parts caster sugar to water, 100ml vanilla essence, 100ml red food colouring and 4 x drops of Tabasco sauce and bring to the boil.

Leave to simmer on a low heat for 5-10mins before allowing to cool naturally and then placing in the freezer to firm up before using it to rim the glass!

Step away from the traditional pumpkin this year and try something a little different; the devilishly delicious butternut squash risotto from the team at San Carlo.

Baked butternut squash is filled with a creamy risotto of onion, red pepper, white wine, Parmesan and saffron, before being topped with fresh truffle shavings, a Parmesan crust and a pink peppercorn to finish.

Available now at San Carlo Manchester, this dish is sure to give a real bite to your Halloween season – so why not come down and try it – or create at home by following Filippo’s recipe below.

Butternut Squash Risotto – Serves 2

Ingredients:

• Butternut Squash – medium size, one per person
• Two red peppers – sliced
• One large onion – finely chopped
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper – to season
• Fresh sage
• Vegetable Stock
• Risotto Rice – 180g (90g per person)
• White wine (60ml)
• Saffron 0.5g
• Butter 30g
• Parmesan 30g
• Fresh truffle (shaved) or truffle oil

Method:

Cut off the top half of the butternut squash and scoop out the seeds inside and make into a shape of bowl.

Put the top half squash in the oven for 1 hour at 160 degrees until the squash is soft but not too soft.

Take the second half (bottom part) and split in 2 horizontally. Cut & peel the top half into cubes and saute in a pan with olive oil, sage, red peppers and a pinch of salt and pepper.

With the remaining bottom half, peel and cut into cubes and cook in a pan with a touch oil, sage, vegetable stock for about 20 minutes or until soft.

Take the mix and blend all together to make a sort of pumpkin stock (broth).

To make Risotto:

Place finely chopped onion in a pan with a touch of oil and after 3 minutes, add the risotto with half a gram of Saffron.

Add 30ml of white wine for every 90 grams of risotto (1 portion).

Heat all together and slowly gradually add the pumpkin broth made before continuously stirring until the risotto is cooked.

Remove from flame, add 30 grams of Butter, a touch of olive oil and  30 gr of Parmesan or to liking. Pour all of the mix inside the pumpkin bowl and place in the oven for 5 minutes at 180 degrees to make everything uniform.

Serve in a pumpkin bowl and add some black truffle shavings to finish  the dish.

November’s ‘Spirit Session’ at San Carlo Fumo Manchester is all about rum.

Following last month’s Gin Tasting, Dave Marsland, ‘Drinks Enthusiast’, will be back at our One St Peter’s Square bar and restaurant to host the cocktail event alongside Bar Manager Sean McGuirk on Wednesday 4th November.

El dorado 3yr, Bacardi Oakheart, Blackwells Jamaican Rum and Chairmans Reserve Spiced are all on the menu, plus an exclusive rum cocktail made using Diplomatico Anejo.
For more information or to book please contact the bar team at Fumo on 0161 236 7344.

Other Spirit Sessions include our World Whiskies evening confirmed for Wednesday 18th November and the ‘Luxury Event’ which offers an extra special Fumo experience is held on Wednesday 9th December.
Fumo cicchetti dishes are not included in the ticket price. Places are limited. Cost per event varies so please check at time of booking.

A reminder of our Fumo Sound live music DJ sessions and sax performances for 2015:
Manchester – 24.10 07.11 21.11; 05.12; 12.12; 19.12; 31.12
Birmingham – 07.11; 05.12; 31.12