Top Northern Irish chef spices up sauce market
Leading Northern Irish chef/restaurateur Tony O'Neill is to launch a range of Italian sauces for retail. The products being planned will be sold, initially, through the three Belfast restaurants - Il Pirata, Coppi and Barking Dog -that O'Neill, a talented and respected chef, runs with two business partners. The next stage could see the products being available through social media and then retailers here and further afield.
O'Neill, a former executive head chef at the five-star Merchant Hotel in Belfast, has a wealth of experience gained "doing food differently" and marketing his restaurants online. He has already set up business in a production kitchen to develop the new sauces that will be sold under the Coppi brand.
The brand is carried forward from Coppi, the restaurant that opened in 2012 and is now the city's most highly regarded Italian food businesses. Coppi set new standards in taste and quality with Venetian style cichetti dishes.
Specialising in simple Italian classics, Coppi is Belfast's first cichetti / bacari restaurant that's inspired by those found throughout Venice. More substantial 'signature' dishes include Steak Florentine, using Himalayan salt aged beef from premium local supplier Hannan Meats, winner of an impressive cluster of UK Great Taste Awards.
The success of these and other Italian dishes on the menu with diners has encouraged the entrepreneurial O'Neill to make the sauces and pasta more readily available. The business has also launched the distinctive Coppi Truck to bring Italian dishes to the developing street food sector in the city.
"Tastes are certainly changing, becoming more cosmopolitan in Belfast with younger diners asking if they can buy our sauces. It seemed good business sense to explore the possibility and the opportunity to sell outside Northern Ireland," he says.
The objective is to provide quality food that diners will enjoy either in the restaurants or at home.
A cycling enthusiast, O'Neill is also excited by and gearing up to enjoy the Giro d'Italia road race starting in Northern Ireland in May. Il Pirata and Coppi were named after famed Italian road racing cyclists. Il Pirata, which specialises in rustic Italian meals, takes its name from Marco Pantani, the pirate, who sprinted to success in both the Giro and Tour de France road races in 1998. He's the last cyclist to win both in one year. Coppi takes its name from Fausto Coppi, a winner of the Giro a remarkable five times, the last in 1953, as well as the Tour de France in 1949 and 1953.