Il Maremmano opens on Tulse Hill in Brixton

The team behind Maremma restaurant have opened an apericena bar, Il Maremmano, on Tulse Hill in Brixton.

Apericena is a new take on aperitivo in Italy. Formed by adding the word cena, meaning dinner, onto aperitivo, dishes are more substantial than aperitivo, but more casual than dinner.

The bar is an extension of restaurant owners Alice Staple and Dickie Bielenberg’s love of the Maremma region, the wild coastal area in southern Tuscany known for its wild boar, seafood and vineyards.

The bar, just around the corner from the restaurant, is serving up small plates and taglieri for guests to share, whilst enjoying a cocktail, Tuscan wine or locally brewed beer. Small plates include crostini, a large crostini, with toppings such as chicken liver and truffle or ricotta and cardoncelli mushrooms.

Also on the menu is schiacciate, one of Tuscany’s greatest gifts to the world, a glorious flat bread, similar to focaccia, with toppings that will change regularly. Currently guests can choose between Tuscan sausage, lardo and red onion or fresh buffalo mozzarella, tomato and rocket.

Warming Maremman specialities include stuffed squid with tomato sauce and pork and lemon meatballs served with a pork jus.

Alice and Dickie have started producing their own wine and salumi on their farm in the Maremma. The wine, Nelly Volpaiole 2018, is a white Sangiovese, a grape normally used in red wine, produced by Fuori Mondo and is the first white wine Fuori Mondo have produced. Nelly has been aged in amphora clay urns and draws on the wild herbs and Tuscan fields to create an exciting, natural, biodynamic addition to the wine list. Only 1078 bottles were produced last year (the first batch) and you’ll find it exclusively at Il Maremmano and Maremma in the UK. The wine is available alongside other Tuscan wines from small independent producers in the region and all hand-picked by the restaurant owners.

Dishes will be accompanied by a selection of classic cocktails including the ever essential Spritz, a mainstay of Italian aperitivo culture, Negronis and Maremma Bellinis, and signature cocktails such as an Aperi Sour mixed with Del Professore Aperitivo, Crocodile gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup, egg white or Buttero with El Jimador tequila, Pampelle, Prosecco, fresh lime, orange and hibiscus.

Housed in a former café on Tulse Hill, the bar draws on the wild Maremman landscape, iron rich clay and fertile volcanic soil central to viniculture and winemaking since the Etruscans.

The soil, the forests, hills, olive groves and Tyrrhenian sea have inspired the colour scheme of terracotta red with notes of deep blue and sage green.

Dickie, a Brixton resident for almost 50 years, has also included his personal collection of local gig posters of as part of the décor.