Squeezed in between takeaways and a betting shop, with Houldsworth Mill looming in the distance, the red-brick row of shops that's home to A Tavola is about as far removed from sun-soaked Sicily as you could imagine on a muggy, rain-lashed August evening.
A couple of tables and chairs are huddled hopefully on the pavement outside the Reddish restaurant, in front of a window filled with corks and stacked with San Pellegrino cans, tinned tuna and olive oil.
Inside, it's styled like a traditional trattoria with all the trappings and tat: bunches of oregano and thyme strung from the ceiling, armoured marionette soldiers from Sicily's famous puppet theatre dangling in the windows, black and white photo canvases, and mirrors and light fixtures garlanded with fake flowers. A Palermo football scarf is draped over the bar, next to a deli counter crammed with cannoli shells and tubs of gelato.
It's got a cosy, corny charm that I've fallen for before I've even sat down, as staff play a game of table Tetris to slot us in somewhere. A party of six are shuffled along, tables are parted and chairs rearranged until there's space for us to park ourselves by the window.
The tiny restaurant is crammed to capacity - about 20 people, at a push - on a Wednesday evening, and deservedly so.
Chef Alessio Muccio previously ran popular Italian restaurant Mamma Mia in Denton before turning his attention to the food of his native Sicily and opening A Tavola with his partner Nicky in 2016.
Specialising in the cuisine of Italy's largest island, its spiral bound menu sweeps across 14 pages ("I think it was in chapter four," my friend deadpans as I flip back through it to try to find a dish that had caught my eye).
There are arancini, stuffed with mushrooms, spinach, beef ragu, ham or Sicilian sausage (£6.50), bruschette slicked with Sicilian olive tapenade, or capunata, or ricotta, honey and pistachios (from £5.50), four types of burrata (from £7.50), and countless cured meats and salamis - and that's barely skimming the surface of the starters.
Mains span a selection of largely Sicilian pasta dishes ('no bolognese, carbonara or chicken', the menu proudly proclaims), grilled fish and meat dishes, and burgers.
It's remarkable a restaurant of this size can even find the storage space for the amount of produce that goes into such a vast menu, let alone execute everything on it so well. But, judging by the dishes we try, Alessio pulls it off.
Pasta chi sardi (£13.50) typifies the blend of Italian and North African influences found in Sicilian cooking. A Mount Etna-shaped mound of al dente bucatini is tossed with a sauce made from sardine and anchovies cooked with onions, fennel, saffron, pine nuts and raisins, and capped with a blizzard of toasted breadcrumbs.
There's added crunch from more fresh sardines flaked through, tiny bones and all. A flurry of fresh dill amplifies the anise flavour of the fennel, and the raisins lend bursts of sweetness to the intensely savoury sauce.
Casarecce di bronte (£13.50) is equally as good, loaded with fresh crab meat in a creamy pistachio pesto tinged with the earthy warmth of saffron and scattered with dill.
Although originating in Rome, pizza al taglio - rectangular slabs sold 'by the cut', as the name translates - is a street snack commonly found in Sicily and there's a range on the menu here, sold in 7x7 or 14x7 slices.
The base of a seven square inch slice is gently charred and crisp enough to withstand the weighty topping of the Rustica (£8), piled high with hefty Sicilian pork and fennel sausage, rosemary and roast potatoes - though there's a minor landslide as I tilt it towards my face.
Bury me in spuds, I don't care. The Italians have the carb:carb ratio just right.
The dessert list is a shrine to sweet ricotta - stuffed inside crisp cannoli shells, marzipan-covered cassatine cakes and cassatelle pastries - alongside staples such as tiramisu, affogato and zabaglione.
We dive into the deli counter for cones of soft, elastic pistachio and chocolate gelato (from £2.50 a scoop) and crumbly almond biscuits (£1.20 each), as squidgy and nuttily sweet as marzipan and filled with fig jam and lurid green pistachio.
There's a solid range of Sicilian wine to drink in or take home with you from the deli, though only a handful (two each of white, red and rose, from £5.50) are available by the glass. Staff are unfailingly lovely despite tripping over one another to ferry food between the tightly-packed tables, and the humidity that hangs in the room as the heat from the kitchen meets the damp air from the open door.
As I pay up at the counter (the card machine's broken but they're taking bank transfers until it's fixed), I catch sight of a diner wafting herself elegantly with a fan, and suddenly this stretch of Broadstone Road could almost be Palermo - if you squint past the McColls off-licence over the road. Almost.
Its might be tiny but A Tavola's appeal is huge. No wonder it's packing them in every night of the week.
How we scored it
Food: 4/5
Service: 4/5
Atmosphere: 4/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5
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