“A jewellery box of Sicilian gems.”
Sicilian food has for a long time lived in the shadow of it’s Italian cousin. My first taste of Sicilian cuisine was the occasional course at Bocca Di Lupo in Soho, where many of the staff are from the Island. My second, a far more comprehensive one taste – was in Sicily itself – where I visited a few years ago and fell in love with both the people and the kitchen. What I noticed when visiting was the food had it’s own style. Some of the differences between this cuisine and that of Italy are very subtle, but others are not – you will not find fig and hazelnut pasta on the mainland, and I noticed in many dishes basil or oregano was replaced with fresh mint, and many of the more popular bites like cannoli and arancini (favourites of mine) are well loved in Italy, but are very much Sicilian inventions.
So it was with a wave of wistful nostalgia that I gratefully accepted an invitation to The Sicilian Deli in West Dulwich. This is a new deli, that opened only in February (an unlucky time for any new business to launch), with the modest social media presence and website befitting of a business that’s too busy doing well in the real world, to need to try hard online. I made my way to Dulwich, not knowing exactly what I would find, and was pleasantly surprised at tangible buzz on this little stretch of Rosendale Road. I believe it takes three good shops on a road to make a “scene”, so with a large fine food store and butchers, a wine shop, an authentic pizzeria, and the deli all on the same stretch, at approx 4pm there were plenty of shoppers, and still a queue of locals outside The Sicilian Deli. There is something reassuring about this – food that people are willing to wait for.
I am ushered in by Carlo, a Sicilian who manages the deli and who guides me through their offering. What unfolds is a delightfully small shop, where every effort has been made to stock as many authentic Sicilian ingredients and delicacies as possible, from the extra virgin olive oil they bottle themselves in a small town in the East of the island, known for having produced oil for several hundred years, to the pasta sauces which are also an in-house creation. A tomato sauce is only ever as good as the tomatoes you’re using, and The Sicilian Deli is growing their own in Sicily, making and bottling them there. Carlo explains that they don’t even use greenhouses in production – just water and sunshine are enough to produce the deliciously sweet and flavourful tomatoes used. There are six sauces in total – from one with just three ingredients (tomatoes, extra virgin olive oil, and basil) to others, including the Sicilian favourite “Norma” – tomatoes with aubergines, and traditionally served with ricotta salata – a firm, pressed ricotta that is grated on top of the pasta. Fiche Noci – fig and hazelnut, is another regional sauce, and there are some more familiar favourites too – puttanesca, picante, classico, and so on.
There are things you haven’t seen before – anchovy juice, a tangerine orange elixir in little glass jars that I’m told works well with pasta, stuffed pigs trotter – something that looks too challenging for even my palate – which Carlo informs me is a New Years delicacy on the island, and Pacenzia Zibibbo – a dessert wine I’m told must be served ice cold with biscotti. Also in my shopping basket goes a few sausages (great chunky, fatty, ones that I can tell just from looking will be excellent – they are handmade – I take the chilli, they also have fennel). I also take some olives (for immediate consumption), some grana padano, and the ricotta salata, to add to the Norma sauce.
Whilst I make my choices, others filter in and out, local people who have made it their business to help this fledgling one. And it’s worked – I’m told despite two lockdowns, things have gone surprisingly well and the Sicilian Deli is looking to refurb and expand. It feels like for the food industry there is no good news – closures and cut backs are the headline stories on a macro level, but on a micro level, more time at home (and in the kitchen) has sparked a small revolution of people who reject the supermarket in favour of smaller, more authentic retailers like this. Everyone seems to know each other, most customers are on first name terms with the staff. The porchetta, arancini, and focaccia are already sold out – you can grab a coffee, a sandwich, or an implausibly large tub of gelato. People like it here and they come back. This is a jewellery box of Sicilian gems – small, but generous in its offering and with many items I shall be coming back to try.
Returning home, I tried the pasta sauces and found them to be fresh and flavour packed. The limited process makes for honest sauces that it’s hard to believe contain so few ingredients. With my chilli sausage, the “picante” (hot) pasta sauce, and some yellow tomatoes, I made a quick sausage ragu, which I ran through fettuccine, topped with plenty grana Padano, and scoffed at an embarrassing pace.
A little foodie enclave that I highly recommend – many thanks to The Sicilian Deli for providing a ray of sunshine in otherwise stormy times.
Sabrina Goodlife
