Manna

Why did you chose to start this businness in Noto? One of my friends who is the owner of a luxury B&B in the building upstairs asked me to open a restaurant to be used by her customers. So two of my friends and I decided to open this restaurant. I also had a restaurant in Milan but I often came on holiday in Noto and I thought that there could be good possibilities in the field of tourism here.

How old is your business? We opened our activity two years ago. Have you had any difficulties to open the business? We had considerable difficulties to get the permission to renovate the rooms on the ground floor of this palace. We also had some troubles with our neighbours too. It was also difficulty to get raw materials. While in Milan you can get everything you need by phone, here you have to collect raw materials from suppliers. As our chef has worked a lot with organic food and spices in Japan, he needs them to prepare his dishes but he can’t find them everywhere because they are sold only in special shops.

What dishes do you usually prepare? We prepare a lot of good and simple dishes with fish and meat. Raw materials are local and they are very good here. Everything has a different flavour. We make a Mediterranean cucine with a difference. The only thing we add to our dishes is our love and passion for food.

Is it necessary to have a particular predisposition for this work? If you want to open a restaurant you need a lot of passion and a great spirit of sacrifice.

Why did you choose this name for your activity? Its name was not born by chance. We were looking for a name connected to the territory. Manna is a typical Sicilian product which comes from ash tree and is a product protected by Slow Food because you can only find it in Sicily. It also has Biblical references, the manna that the Lord sent from Heaven. We hope it will be auspicious for our business. What kind of clients do you have? We have foreign customers above all British, American and French. What period of the year do you work more? Surely it’s the summer that in Sicily lasts from March/April until the end of October.

Have you increased your sales from the beginning of your business? Absolutely, because we began to make ourselves known and this means that people talk about us. This year was very productive from the point of view of tourism because of all the terrorist attacks in various countries, tourism has moved to safer places like Sicily. How have you advertised your restaurant? We didn’t advertise it much. The best sponsor was the customers’ word of mouth because if you work well people will talk about you.

Do you change your dishes according to the seasons?   Absolutely yes. We change our menu according to the fish we find and according to the season. We also make dishes for celiacs, for vegans because more and more people have problems of intolerance and we try to meet customers’needs.

Do you have a dish that is less required than others? No, we don’t. Every day we offer different dishes and our customers ask for both meat and fish. In this period the most popular dish is pasta with fish, clams and mussels.