A new cafe is bringing something different to Beeston with a menu of Sicilian street food and patisserie served with "passion and love". Compa will throw open its doors on SaturdayMay 21) after transforming the former Renaissance Fashion Agency.
The tight-knit band of family and friends behind the cafe say it's the real deal - from their accents to the authentic Sicilian delights on the menu such as cornetto, arancina, cannolo and cassatina. Beeston has its fair share of Italian restaurants - lively Amores, the intimate L'Oliva and new 150-seater Ottimo - but there's nothing else quite like this.
Compa - pronounced with the emphasis on the 'pa' - is the brainchild of best friends Angela Aiello and Manola Perez, who have known each other for 25 years. The duo first met while working in high end Italian department store Rinascente in their home city Palermo.
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Angela, who says Manola is like a sister, said: "Compa you can translate it in English as mate or bro but for us it's a little bit different. For us it's 'I will take take care of you'. We call each other compa."
Signing a lease wasn't enough to show their commitment to the business - the duo have had matching tattoos inked on their forearms. Angela said: "We are excited, nervous and crazy but very happy. We've had tattoos because we believe in what we're doing.
"We would like to bring a little bit of Sicily here in the heart of Beeston, our home away from home. If people want to taste authentic flavours from Sicily come here."
Sicily, the island at the southern tip of Italy's foot, has its own regional specialities. Angela's son Andrea Ledda, 23, explained how Sicily didn't have the wealth like the north of the country so generations of cooks learnt how to make simple, inexpensive ingredients taste good, like the rice-filled arancina balls, served at the cafe with ham and bechemal, ragu, mushroom and spinach.
Andrea said: "In the north of Italy they tend use expensive ingredients. In the south of Italy especially Sicily, because we have we have been poor for generations, our grandmas used to cook very cheap food but the most amazing thing is that even though it was cheap food it's so tasty because the way we prepare it makes it taste nice.
"It's not as expensive as it would be north of Italy where you'd find more steaks and more meat. I think that's why Sicilian food is better - making a steak taste nice is easy. Making rice taste nice is not as easy. That's why there's a very big difference between Sicilian food and the rest of Italy.
"Everything on the menu is mainly street food from Sicily so all the arancina, rotisserie, paninis - these are something that you can't find elsewhere. If you go in any Italian restaurant you won't find any of those and if you do they will be British adapted recipes."
The reasonably priced menu, with most items costing £3.50 to £6, also consists of slices of pizzetta, with tomato sauce, mozzarella and oregano, baked and fried calzone, and rollo, stuffed with pork or chicken. Paninis come with fillings such as mortadella sausage, stracciatella cheese and flaked pistachios or porchetta, wild rocket and grana cheese.
Lasagne can be bought by the portion at £5 or a tin serving six is £25. The same goes for Sicilian pasta bake, made with rigatoni, beef ragu, bechemal, aubergines, ham and mozzarella.
It goes without saying that cannolo, bursting at both ends with creamy ricotta and chocolate drops, is amongst the patisserie section. Other sweet treats include the green-coloured cassatina, a sponge cake crafted using homemade marzipan, topped a cherry.
As well as Italian coffee, tea and hot chocolate, the range of cold drinks includes Tomarchio Bio imported from Sicily, in flavours including lemon and chinotto. It looks like cola but doesn't taste like it, instead having a bittersweet orange taste.
Opening Monday to Saturday in time for breakfast customers can start the day with cornetto - not the ice cream - but the pastry that's similar to a croissant. Plain, apricot, chocolate and hazelnut, and almond flavours are available. Customers can also buy Italian products to take home such as crisps, fruit drinks, biscuits and pesto.
Large windows, overlooking Wollaton Road, allow the light to flood into the 20-seater cafe, with its simple black-topped tables, colourful artwork by Manola, and a Palermo football shirt on the wall. A traditional Sicilian cart, or carretto, has been made by Angela's husband Massimo Bellavisita and decorated by Manola, who also created the cafe logo of the moustachioed, winking man wearing a traditional Sicilian coppola cap.
Angela moved to Beeston five years ago with Massimo and their three children and it's been her dream since then to open a cafe. But she said a new country, new people and a new language held her back at first, so in the meantime she helped to run her husband's electrical business.
She said: "I had basic English when I moved five years ago and went to MagiKats school in Beeston to learn English but then Covid happened so I had to stop my lessons and everything I have learnt since then I have learnt on TV series and movies with subtitles in English to link the words."
Manola, who followed her friend over to the UK three years ago with her two daughters, is running the kitchen. Eldest daughter Rebecca, 18, is also working at Compa.
Customers can eat in, take away or have food delivered through Deliveroo, from Monday. There's also a click and collect option on the Compa website. Compa will open at 11am for its first day, and usual hours will be 9.10am to 7pm.
