Sugo Pasta Kitchen Sale

With a menu plugging a regional style of south Italian cooking, Sugo Pasta Kitchen Sale joins two sister outlets (Altrincham and Ancoats) as well as being one of the businesses moving in to the newly regenerated Stanley Square, aiming to revitalise the town centre.

“Best eaten with a spoon”, states Sugo’s menu – but this isn’t for dessert, this is for their generous dishes of fresh Pugliese pasta, made by the De Leonardis family in Altamura, Puglia – the southern coastal region of Italy that forms the heel of the country’s “boot”. Not for the faint hearted, House Sugo is orecchiette slathered in a ragu of slow-cooked beef shin, pork shoulder and ‘nduja. Another Sugo special, the seafood Sugo Scoglio (“rocks”) features shell-on king prawns, baby squid and mussels, teamed with calamarata, a kind of thick ring pasta that resembles sliced calamari – clever! – and originates from Naples in the south of Italy. The small eggless pasta shells of cavatelli and its stretched version strozzapreti meet their match here, as in Italy, with green veg. The latter is teamed with broccolini, plus anchovy butter, house chicken stock and a scattering of pangrattato breadcrumbs for a rich spoonful and a Sugo classic; the former meets courgette, broad beans and peas, with flavours of mint, ricotta and Parmesan. There are monthly-changing dishes, such as, in May, the aformentioned cavatelli with shredded ham hock, hispi cabbage, peas, mint, chilli and Parmesan, while other seasonal produce might include Yorkshire Swaledale lamb in meatballs with pecorino, pea and mint ragu, and ricotta.

For dolce, think traditional offerings like panna cotta and cannoli, and a chocolate “Nemesis” cake. Wine includes low intervention and is purely Puglian and Sicilian, with Venetian fizz; jugs are available if you want to go full-on rustic. There’s Italian or Brightside Brewery beer, and still and sparkling water is filtered in house to reduce waste.

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