Neo Neapolitan
Fresh from the acclaimed and much-missed Moorcock in Norland, chef Thomas McManus is now cooking up at a storm at Anello in Slaithwaite, as Amanda Wragg discovers.
TWELVE months ago to the day I wrote about about Anello, a pizza restaurant in Slaithwaite. I say wrote; actually I raved a bit gushingly about it: “I’m sticking my neck out here – it’s the best pizza in Yorkshire.” I’ve made the two-hour round trip a couple of times since, despite having perfectly decent pizza joints on the doorstep, because I’m a sucker for a slice, and it’s a really lovely spot.
Once Slaithwaite Library, it’s an effortlessly sat-back restaurant with a handsome fit-out with a full glass frontage, stripped floors, pale wood furniture and pops of colour on neutral walls from original artworks. Walk in to groovy tunes, a warm hello and an absolute beast of an oven hot enough to cook a pizza in less than a minute. We’re not here for pizza tonight, but to check out their latest offer.
I’ve been stalking them on Instagram, watching them develop and grow and I don’t mind telling you that my mouth has been watering. “An ever-changing menu of seasonal Neapolitan pizza and small plates,” they say. The ones that caught my eye included cold smoked trout (from the Burnt Hill Herb Co) on keffir and potato sauce with radish and cucumber, layered lamb skewers with organic toms and salsa verde, and Vernazza loaf cake, New Hagg plum and cardamom sorbet, sweet cream from Samuel Brigg & Sons and pistachio. Add to those wood roast crookneck squash, scorched radicchio, sherry vinegar soaked raisins, gooseberry sauce. If I’d been a bit quicker off the mark,
I’d have nipped over the hills for octopus with fermented tomato and house miso dressing, lovage and fennel pollen from the Anello kitchen garden.
Hands up if you’ve missed the Moorcock at Norland. As the song goes: don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone? It was on my doorstep so I had a season ticket, and thought it would be there forever. But good news: Alisdair Brooke-Taylor’s sous chef Thomas McManus braved the journey from Calderdale to the Colne Valley and is in the Anello kitchen.
He brought with him the huge outside ovens, grills and smoking chambers from the Moorcock and this summer has been cooking up a storm in the kitchen garden, collaborating with Zapato Brewers just along the valley.
Among his other skills, owner Jim Morgan is a recruiting genius. Along with McManus, he’s got accomplished chefs Rick McCollum (who is a co-partner) and Rob Majcherek, who came with him from the much-loved Rudy’s in Manchester. This kind of talent in one kitchen can only mean one thing: interesting, innovative food, well thought-through and responsive to the season and availability. The octopus dish, for instance, was on just for the one night, so you’ve got to be quick.
As I say we’re not here for pizza but I can tell you that the menu features the usual suspects (Marinara, Margherita, mushroom) with a couple of interesting additions: Crown Prince squash, pecorino and walnuts and a “white” pizza, nduja, kale and mascarpone. But our eyes are on the deep-fried Gordal olives stuffed with “house sausage” and tarragon aioli, and aubergine parmigiana. Drag one of those crunchy olives through the sweet/sharp aioli and they’re supremely neckable, and whatever the house sausage, is I’d like a box of it delivered at the start of each week please. (Turns out it’s freighted with their kitchen garden herbs plus the welcome addition of crushed coriander seeds, lending a floral note.)
The parmigiana is textbook, rustic and sweet with a shower of sharp parmesan. Gorgonzola aranchini is textbook too: fabulously light with a centre of pure molten cheesiness, with nduja aioli punching through.
Star of the show is porchetta, fennel and apple slaw, local grapes – it’s beautifully balanced, sweet and sharp, crunchy and super modern; a contender for my dish of the year. Along with a carafe of Montresor Corvina 2020 Verona – “floral notes, hints of tangerine zest” – it’s a faultless dinner.
The hawk-eyed among you will have spot
ted the allegiance to careful sourcing. It’s very much front and centre of Jim and Kate Morgan’s thinking; a lot of places do this, some genuinely, some just in name and obliquely. The young team here do not just mouth the litany of seasonal and local, they mean it, taking “locally sourced” to another level, and the plan ultimately is to “close food mileage down to pretty much county boundaries,” says Jim.
He’s hoping that most, if not all, veg and herbs will come from the kitchen garden, run by Jack Norman, who is planning over 20 beds, polytunnels and bee hives. “We’re keen to create an atmosphere where anyone with a particular interest can pursue it – whether that’s growing San Marzano tomatoes instead of importing them, or making house miso and fermenting, in Thomas’s case," says Jim. “Allowing people to follow their own interests means a creative and happy working environment.”
It’s not so much Boiling Point or the Bear; the work is hard of course but I think that the days of sweary bully chefs in cramped kitchens are behind us. “This way, the team get to have a decent work/life balance, which hopefully will translate to an interesting menu and good food,” adds Jim.
Well it seems to be working: these are really energetic and confident plates, made with an enthusiasm for ingredients, ethics and methods. As the much-missed Alisdair Brooke-Taylor quipped from his new home in Australia, ‘‘only great things can come from this”.
I might have mentioned I wasn’t going to have pizza. I absolutely didn’t come for pizza. Did I have pizza? Of course I did. What do you take me for?
Anello, 8 Britannia Rd, Slaithwaite, Huddersfield HD7 5HG 01484 841720 www.anellopizza. co.uk. Closed Monday/Tuesday.