San Carlo to open Covent Garden Fumo restaurant
Italian restaurant group San Carlo is to launch a new site under its Fumo brand in London's Covent Garden.
The new 130-cover Fumo will open at 37 St Martin's Lane in early September.
The seven-day-a-week operation will feature a solid marble bar and will focus on small plates or cicchetti using fresh, seasonal ingredients, most of which are sourced from produce markets in Milan.
Typical dishes will include: tagliolini lobster, cod Vincentina (Venetian style cod); homemade gnocchi truffle, and guazetto di cozze e vongole (mussels and clams with tomato sauce, chilli and white wine).
In the kitchen will be a brigade of 15 chefs guided by San Carlo executive chefs Filippo Pagani and Franco Bellamusto, as well as chef consigliere Aldo Zilli.
San Carlo is owned by the Distefano family, which owns 17 restaurants throughout the UK including: Cicchetti Piccadilly and Covent Garden in London and House of Fraser Manchester; Bottega and Gran Cafe in Selfridges, Manchester and Signor Sassi Knightsbridge. There are two existing Fumo sites in Birmingham and Manchester, as well as San Carlo restaurants in Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Liverpool, Leicester and Birmingham.
Managing director Marcello Distefano said: "We're excited to bring Fumo, a modern concept in Italian dining, to St Martin's Lane. Our existing London restaurants Signor Sassi on Knightsbridge Green and both Cicchetti sites in Piccadilly and Covent Garden continue to flourish and we expect nothing less for Fumo. With Fumo open our group expansion plans will focus on Bahrain and Dubai where we look to open in 2017."
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