San Carlo sees first mover advantage as Fumo opens

THE boss of the San Carlo Restaurant Group says its latest Manchester opening, Fumo, may be its last for some time.

Marcello Distefano said the new site, in the new flagship One St Peter’s Square building, is “fresh and different” to anything the group has done before.

“We are very excited about Fumo – it’s more of a cocktail bar concept than a restaurant. We always want to be in great locations and we’re really excited about the possibilities for this part of the city.  This great building is a big deal for Manchester as it is creating a new area, one that had been a bit neglected until now.”

“This will be the last I think for a little while, though you should never say never, because Manchester is our heart and it’s where we live.”

San Carlo, which was launched by Marcello’s father, Carlo in 1992, now has five Greater Manchester sites, four in the city centre and a fifth within the Marriot Airport Hotel, Hale Barns.

As well as Manchester it has sites in Liverpool, Leeds, Birmingham, Leicester, Bristol and increasingly London.

“We opened a second Cicchetti in London, in Covent Garden, and it’s performing really well. London is such an unique market that it can’t not be important to any ambitious business like ours.”
 
Having launched the Cicchetti first in Manchester within the House of Fraser, just opposite the group’s flagship restaurant on King Street West, Distefano feels Fumo is also a scale-able sub-brand.

“We developed it first in Birmingham, but have gone further with the concept here, for instance we have ice cream cocktails on the menu as an alternative to dessert and it makes sense because we make all our own ice cream.”

He praised Manchester City Council for its success in building-up the festive markets in the city centre, which he said were proving to be a magnet for visitors from all over the region and beyond.

“The growth of the Christmas markets has been unbelievable in the last five or six years and it’s having a fantastic impact on business – we did 1,100 covers on Saturday in San Carlo and something like 980 at Cicchetti across the road, which for November is brilliant.”

 

Close