From Soil to Plate, San Carlo Loves Pachino Tomatoes
Lying at the very heart of authentic Italian cuisine, from pizza and pasta alla norma to aubergine based caponata, the Pomodoro (tomato sauce) is arguably the most important ingredient of all.
In the south east corner of Sicily, not far from the birthplace of our Chairman Carlo Distefano, twisting tomato vines are everywhere to be seen, but it is the ciliegino (cherry) and costoluto (large salad tomato) tomatoes from Pachino that steal the show and are flown in from Sicily to our award winning Italian restaurants across the UK to form the foundation of many of our signature dishes.
Intensely fragrant and bursting with sweetness and flavour thanks to the coastal microclimate, soil and sun, Pachino tomatoes are crunchier on the outside and sweeter on the inside than most varieties. An explosion of freshness in your mouth with a sweet pulp yet savoury at the same time, they contain all the flavours of the land in which they were cultivated.
Enjoying geographically protected status, these highly prized tomatoes are not just delicious; referred to as the red gold of Pachino they also offer exceptional nutritional properties; rich in antioxidants and vitamins, they’re an important part of the Mediterranean diet.
In a world of chain restaurants with controlled portion sizes and centralised kitchens, at San Carlo we remain passionately independent and passionate about cooking using only the best Italian seasonal produce. That’s why you’ll find Pachino tomatoes in our salads, on our bruschetta in the Pomodoro sauce on our pizzas, in tomato based pasta dishes such as pasta all norma and in many other dishes on our menus.
