An alternative to Xmas dinner: Sicilian NQ

National World - LocalTV

I sat down with Carmen, one of the owners of Sicilian NQ in the Northern Quarter, to find out a little about their decision to remain open over Christmas and discover the secrets of Sicilian food.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World. Now Christmas is very nearly here now

00:05and that means a lot of excitement for a lot of people. Some people's parents

00:09will be buying a turkey and getting ready to cook a massive Christmas feast

00:13but more and more people in the UK are becoming a bit fed up with the

00:17traditions of a Christmas dinner and looking for alternatives and that's why

00:21I'm out in the northern quarter today because there's a restaurant here which

00:24is staying open on Christmas Day. We're gonna pop along and see what the owner

00:28has to say. I'm Carmen Andre. I'm the owner together with my partner Claudio

00:34of Sicilian Q restaurant bar and patisserie. So we opened in 2018. We were

00:42before in another location for two years at the back of Piccadilly. We moved at the

00:49beginning of 2020, like two weeks before the lockdown. So great opening on the 6th

00:57of March. We were so happy, full of people. You cannot even walk in the

01:03premise and in two weeks they destroyed everything because they shut

01:08us down. And since 2022 it seems that we are on the up. The food is on me

01:18because I use the recipe of my mum. The quality of ingredients are important

01:25because if you use really tomatoes, for example, it's the base of our

01:31dish. How you can make a good sauce if you don't have the right oil, the right

01:39onion, the right tomato. It's impossible. It seemed to me very strange that all the

01:46restaurants around, they shut on the 25th. Why? I don't understand. That's

01:53something particular in this city that I think doesn't happen in other parts of

01:59the world. Because in Italy, 25th you are open because the family want to go out.

02:05Then after one, two years, I understood that there was an opportunity because the

02:13other one keep remaining closed. So I get more customers to tell the truth. I get

02:22more business. I'm already like lunch and dinner packed. But both me and my partner

02:30we stay here 25th since morning to close because it's not correct that they work

02:37at them. And then I will be happy to celebrate with my guests here. So I've

02:43just made it back from my trip to Sicilian NQ and I will be going back. I

02:46can't thank Carmen enough for how generous she was with her time and the

02:49food which is in this fridge over here behind me. There's tons left to get

02:53through. I've got a wonderful vegan menu and we're going to do at least two more

02:57videos with them. So keep an eye out for those and follow Manchester World for

03:00more.

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