FOOD & DRINK
Aperitivo & Cicchetti.
By Jonathan Campbell
In Italy aperitivo with cicchetti (chi-KET-tee) is served in bars called Bacari. In Spain, it’s tapas, usually served with a cold cervesa or a full-bodied Rioja in a bottega. In Margate’s old town, it’s a bar called The Little Swift. Wherever you choose to take your early evening drink or cocktail, it’s best to enjoy a tasty snack with it […]
In Italy it’s aperitivo with cicchetti (chi-KET-tee), and it’s served in bars called Bacari in Venice and throughout the north of the country. In Spain, it’s tapas, usually served with a cold cervesa or a full-bodied Rioja in a bottega. Here in the UK, it’s simply a drink with plates. Whatever and wherever you choose to take your early evening drink or cocktail, it’s best to enjoy a tasty snack with it. These snacks are mostly mouthfuls that don’t require cutlery, as that would turn the experience into a meal. These small plates must be simple and easy to consume; no fuss. Just pick it up with your hands and pop it in your mouth, two bites max.
On the Kent Riviera in Margate’s old town is a bar called The Little Swift. It has two front doors, one facing the beach and the other on the high street behind it that runs parallel to the seafront.
If you enter from the high street side, you’re immediately transported to those amazing delicatessens that are everywhere in Europe: shelves of wine bottles, chiller full of lovely stuff and a charcuterie counter. Vinyl selection playing on one of those old-school vertical turntables.
Step down into the restaurant part of the bar – which is beachside – and it’s all simple and unpretentious. Just groups of people enjoying a few drinks and some small plates, before going on for the evening. It’s the perfect place for aperitivo and cicchetti.
When I last visited, we ordered Negronis and the anchovy plate. The drinks arrived with a wooden board with a tin of anchovies opened, fresh bread and a small bowl of very fat olives. It was literally perfect. We prised the anchovies out of their olive oil with wooden cocktail sticks and soaked up the salty olive oil with the bread, ordering another round of drinks. It was all wonderful – so wonderful in fact, that I forgot to take a photo. I have therefore recreated the plate, using Armatore anchovies, the perfect ingredient for this dish.
Only the largest anchovies, fished in spring on the Amalfi Coast, are selected for these fine anchovy fillets in oil. The maturation process takes place in Terzigni (chestnut barrels) for a period of at least eight months. This practice respects rules handed down from generation to generation, a secret that makes the anchovies of Cetara a product of gastronomic excellence.
Once the ripening process is complete, the anchovies are cleaned of salt, pinned and prepared for preserving in olive oil. With this process, storage times are extended without compromising on flavour or quality.
They’re expensive but they taste sublime. I used Guernsey butter on sea salt and rosemary focaccia, with Italian Nocellara olives, which in turn have a wonderful buttery flavour.
Simple, tasty – and perfect with a Negroni.
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Images. The Obsessive, The Little Swift Margate
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