Pop-up pasta kitchen Pasta Slut is coming to Manchester for a series of events this spring. Founder Hayley Meredith will bring her Italian casual dining experience from previous residencies in London, Margate, Bristol and Liverpool to Black Milk in the Northern Quarter and another special event at the Stretford Canteen.
The Black Milk events are set to happen on April 27 and May 25, with the Stretford date on May 28. Other events will be happening too, with dates and locations to be confirmed, including a supper club and Italian cinema night at a city centre spot.
Launching in Bristol in 2017, Meredith traded in a job at high-end fashion and lingerie retailer Agent Provocateur to move into cooking, inspired by her Sicilian heritage, notably her ‘nonna’ Antonia.
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“From knickers to gnocchi,” she joked to the Manchester Evening News. “It started just as supper clubs for friends, and that’s always the ‘in’ for people who aren’t professionally trained chefs isn’t it, they start doing it, and then someone says ‘you should do this for a living!’
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“I couldn’t really fathom how to do it, and once I’d got the money, I did a summer of festivals and that was like being properly thrown in at the deep end.”
Dishes that have become signatures for her include arancini - the filled and deep fried risotto balls - and pasta alla norma, a Sicilian pasta dish with aubergine, pine nuts, salted ricotta and basil, and tiramisu.
“My mum’s side of the family are from Sicily, a tiny town called Grotte,” she says. “And my grandparents came over to live in Stoke in the 1950s, and they had ice cream vans and a fish and chip shop. So that’s where it all comes from, I’m not trained, I’m self taught, and it’s the Sicilian food I was brought up on.”
As for the provocative name, she explains that it stemmed from the word being ‘reclaimed’ by the modern feminist movement. “There are so many conversations to be had around it,” she said. “I think it is a positive and powerful word, someone that explores various different freedoms. I want it to be used in a positive way.”
To find out details about the pop–ups, follow Pasta Slut on Instagram.
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