Molly "Meatball Molly" McCann is "blown away" by the support Liverpool has offered her on the launch of her first food venture, Polpetta.
The local legend and UFC champion brought her long-awaited menu to reality with the help of her close friend Joel McCarthy. Located in the Baltic Market, Polpetta joins a range of independent traders offering some of the best food in the city.
It's an authentic Italian restaurant covering all of the classics from spaghetti and meatballs (spaghetti polpetta), and fettuccini alfredo to street food variants including courgette fries and homemade crisps.
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Polpetta is the Italian word for meatball so naturally it feels like a solid option to label Italian cuisine. On its opening night, Wednesday, July 5, there was a line down the street well before doors opened.
In just a few minutes, the Baltic Market was seeing footfall typically expected over a weekend celebration. Molly was there in person for the launch and got hands-on with the service and even some kitchen duties to ensure Polpetta ran smoothly and guests were satisfied with her highly anticipated meatballs.
Taking a breather for no more than a few minutes, Molly admitted she was blown away by the support she was receiving. She told the Echo: "10 years ago, I was working in the Subway on Bromley Street and it's where I got my name. Looking at this now, I'm just completely blown away by the city showing up for me.
"We've never seen the Baltic Market look like this on a Wednesday and this isn't just a flash in the pan. [Joel and I] worked so hard on this, on brand, the menu, the ingredients the taste, and we've brought the best little group of chefs together that we can find. It's really nice to know that the city has shown up to support me like this."
The 33-year-old added: "We went for a drink and in February we came here for a Guinness. We actually wanted to open a butcher's, something like Molly's meats house, but then we thought, 'What's was our favourite food?' and it's Italian - I'm the meatball, let's do this. We'd meet every Thursday in Punch Tarmey's for a Guinness and we'd come up with a little bit more on a little bit more. We know the owners of the Baltic Market so we sat and had a drunk meeting in the Merchant one night and it went from there. We got our contract and got it going. Molly had them in a headlock."
The team helping out on launch night were some of Molly's closest and Liverpool's most notable chefs. Woo Tan Scran's Alex Woo, a former head chef in Belzan, and a range of culinary school colleagues were all on-site to deliver Molly's delicious food. She added: "There's another lad who's not here because we didn't think we'd need six people on the go on the open."
The Polpetta font and sign stand out from the flashy and ornate stalls at the market due to their childish appearance. Explaining the interesting look, Molly said: "I paid someone loads of money to do our graphics and I thought, 'I'm going to have a little mess around with it.'
"I used my left finger and on my phone hand wrote Polpetta. I did it for about two hours and then I sat down with [the Baltic Market owners] Tim and Ollie and asked which they liked. They picked the first one I did and that was that. We decided let's just have that then."
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