Category: Travel

We are all going to die. Unfortunately, this is an inconvenient, unavoidable fact of life. However, once you have passed onto the next world, how would you like to be remembered? A quaint wooden bench in a public park dedicated to your memory? Your ashes placed in an attractive urn overlooking the family dining table so that you can watch over them as they eat? Or perhaps you would like a distinctive tree planted in your honour? Or you could have an item of food or even better, a panino named after you so that your essence can live on every time someone takes a bite of an unusual, yet delicious sandwich? Well, that is exactly what happened with Pasquale Dell’Erba from Alberobello and ‘Il Pasqualino’.

Pasquale’s views on life after death are not well-documented but one thing is clear; he made a bloody good sandwich (or panino in Italian). He owned and ran a delicatessen on the corner of Corso Vittorio Emanuele and Via Cesare Battisti in the Pugliese town of Alberobello – famous internationally for its white, conically-shaped dwellings known as trulli. His trademark sandwich started to attract attention in the town during the mid-1960s after he began rustling it up for a small group of three or four of his close friends who would meet regularly in front of his shop.

La Pagnottella’s version of ‘Il Pasqualino’

The ingredients varied a little from time to time and depending what was available in his deli, but usually the panino consisted of tuna, capers, salami and provolone cheese. Always in that order and served in either turtle bread (pane tartaruga) or rosetta bread (rosette di pane). It may not initially sound that appetising but the combination worked very well and soon its popularity caught on. The sandwich became a hit with students from several local schools in the area who loved the fact that it was not only good value but also substantial and made using an unusual mix of hearty ingredients.

Soon, Pasquale’s deli couldn’t keep up with the demand and they began pre-making a batch of panini first thing in the morning and then refrigerating them so that they would be instantly ready as customers arrived throughout the course of the day. The term Il Pasqualino (‘The Pasqualino’) was born. Over the next coming decades other bakeries in Alberobello started to serve their own version of the Pasqualino too, sometimes adding ingredients such as marinated mushrooms, pickles or other cold cuts of meat. However, by the 1990s, these bakeries’ tradition of keeping a chest of readymade Pasqualinos in their shops began to fade and it became something of a well-kept local secret. Pasquale’s memory lived on but only amongst those in the know in Alberobello.

Today, you can go into any deli, bakery or café in Alberobello, ask for “un Pasqualino, per favore” and they will know exactly what to make, even though very often it will not be listed anywhere on the menu, or on the board outside. When I visited Alberobello last summer, I avoided the overpriced cafes on the main tourist drag near the ‘trulli zone’ and instead popped into La Pagnottella (Piazza Plebiscito, 10B) around the corner from Chiesa di San Lucia and the popular viewing platform next to it. It is actually quite an upmarket deli that also serves an array of pastries and cakes (sadly I don’t have much of a sweet tooth so give me a sandwich laden with capers and cured meat and fish any day), as well as cheese and fresh pasta.

The lady behind the counter was very friendly and humoured my basic cod-Italian and quickly made me a Pasqualino from scratch – from what I could see, sticking to the traditional ingredients but with the addition of some pickles and a drizzle of olive oil. It was delicious and actually went down very well with an iced coffee on a sweltering summer’s day; the acidity of the capers and pickles cutting through the meat and cheese. The only word of warning is that there was a lot of olive oil – it’s definitely worth picking up an extra napkin or two before you leave the shop.

*Signor Pasquale Dell’Erba, the creator of ‘The Pasqualino’ (photo: Alberobello.com).*

A word about Alberobello

Alberobello is a UNESCO World Heritage site, having been recognised in 1996 and is one of the most famous tourist destinations in Puglia. The town is renowned for having the largest concentration of trulli (the plural form of ‘trullo’) anywhere in the world. These conical, low-level, whitewashed buildings are particular to Puglia and they actually can’t be found anywhere else outside of Southern Italy. There is also some debate about whether the author J.R.R. Tolkien ever visited Puglia and if the trulli served as the real-life inspiration for his novel The Hobbit and the fictional world of Middle-earth and the region where the hobbits lived called The Shire.

One of the main concentrations of trulli in Alberobello.

Trullis can be found dotted all over Puglia. Whilst many of them are still private residential dwellings, a lot of them have now been converted into holiday homes, agriturismos, shops and restaurants. The story of the trulli begins in the 14^th century. The ruling Aquaviva family was keen to avoid paying high property taxes to the Kingdom of Naples, so ordered local peasants to build homes that could be easily taken down, in the event on an inspection. Using the ancient drywall (mortarless) building technique and locally-sourced limestone boulders, the trullis started to appear all over Puglia and became a symbol of the region. Centuries later, many new homes were built in this style, partly as an act of defiance to the ruling family.

Whilst I was keen to visit Alberobello at some stage whilst living in Bari, it wasn’t at the top of my list. I prioritised the baroque and culinary delights of Lecce and the coastal towns Santa Maria di Leuca and Gallipoli first. I actually only stopped off Alberobello for a couple of nights as I was going to the pared-down Locus Festival in nearby Locorotondo and accommodation there was completely fully-booked.

The Comet is Coming at Locus Festival. 14th August 2020.

Locus Festival happens every summer in Puglia and in previous years has attracted the likes of David Byrne, Esperanza Spalding, Four Tet, Floating Points, Lauryn Hill, Theo Parrish, Sly & Robbie and Kamasi Washington to the picturesque town of Locorotondo. Pre-Covid, Locus 2020 had announced a stellar line-up featuring The Pixies, Little Simz, Paul Weller and Kokoroko but sadly the event had to be completely scaled back and most of the acts were unable to play. However, miraculously, some (socially-distanced) gigs were still able to go ahead in the grounds of the Masseria Ferragnano and I saw saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings’ experimental jazz outfit The Comet Is Coming play there. I had seen Shabaka and the band several times in London and at Green Man Festival, so it was a strange experience seeing them playing a gig in the south of Italy during a pandemic year, but a great show all the same.

The following morning, I woke up at 6am and found myself unable to go back to sleep; partly due to the sunlight pouring into my room through a broken blind. It was actually a blessing in disguise as after a typically unsatisfying Italian breakfast of biscuits, pastries and coffee, I was able to explore the trullis of Alberobello without the hordes of tourists and with the August temperatures yet to reach their peak.

The streets and trullis of Alberobello at 7am on a Saturday morning.

There really is no other place in the world like it and the town took on an otherworldly feel at 7am when the streets were quiet apart from a few local businesses opening up for the day. This would be my tip for anyone visiting Alberobello; get up very early and explore the streets without the crowds. Find somewhere for a lunchtime Pasqualino and then have an afternoon pisolino afterwards, if you need it. By 11am, the place was already swarming with selfie-stick wielding tourists and later that evening a bar tried to charge me €9 for a 330cl beer. Needless to say, after speaking to the waiter, I did not pay this.

Salvation was found in the excellent Ristorante La Nicchia though. Now, it did involve a slightly hazardous 15-minute walk (or five minutes if you are driving) along a busy (and dark) main road to get there but it was absolutely worth it. Housed in a complex of trulli 1.5km outside of Alberobello, you immediately got the impression that this was where the locals ate. Great Pugliese fare, a huge wine selection and wallet-friendly prices.

*The food at La Nicchia; Ravioli with almonds, lampascioni and burrata.*

For more background reading on Alberobello’s famous Pasqualino panino, head to the Il Panino Italiano Magazine website (yes, there really is a magazine dedicated to the art of the Italian sandwich).

The path less-trodden; part II

27 March 2021

Clive Drew

Living in Italy Travel No Comments

Casamassima, Triggiano and Bronte

In last week’s post I talked about an often-overlooked gem of a town, Gioia del Colle – 40 km inland from Bari and a town which has become renowned for its cheese and wine. In this post I will turn my attention to three other off-the-beaten-track towns; Casamassima and Triggiano in Puglia and Bronte near Catania in Sicily.

The countryside around Bronte, Sicily.

Casamassima

“The building is horrible and really old and looks like it should be in a horror movie!”

The teenage student had been asked to describe a building in his hometown and had chosen his scuola media (middle school). He continued:

“And there are these really awful trees that grow outside and make the classrooms really dark. For me; they should knock the school down and rebuild it again.”

And when asked about whether he liked living in his hometown, Casamassima?

“Not really. It’s a really boring small town and there’s not much to do apart from studying, running and going to the pizzeria. Tourists never come here.”

Then he remembered something that might vaguely be of interest:

“Oh, but there is this one cool thing. In the centro storico, some of the old houses are painted blue because they thought it would protect them during the… [he looks up the correct word] plague.”

So, when I found myself with a school holiday in February, I took myself off to Casamassima – also known as Puglia’s ‘Blue Town’.

It’s a town with a population of 19,000 that’s 25 minutes’ drive from Bari and nestled at the foot of the Murge Plateau. It has an interesting history and was most likely founded during the Punic Wars by the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus. In the 14^th century it was attacked by the army of Louis I of Hungary and whilst nearby cities like Bari resisted the attack thanks to its city walls and defences, Casamassima fell and the troops razed the village to the ground, burning and killing everything in sight. It was then subsequently rebuilt by the Principality of Taranto, under The Kingdom of Naples and later commandeered by the Acquaviva and Vaaz families (of Portuguese-Jewish origin).

I arrived in Casamassima in the afternoon on a cold and blustery day and found myself a parking space, near an ugly school building surrounded by huge weeping willow-style trees, that spookily matched my student’s description. If this was the place he was describing, he was spot-on, as you can see below.

A short stroll took me into the town centre and after walking through a stone archway and into a narrow street, I found myself in Casamassima’s centro storico and soon enough I began to see several medieval-age stone buildings painted in light blue lime. Casamassima is known in Puglia as “Il Paese Azzurro” (“The Blue Country”) and local legend has it that houses in the town were turned blue by adding copper sulphate to quicklime, after an outbreak of plague in 1658 (transmitted by sailors arriving at the port of Bari) to both ward off and show gratitude to the Madonna for protecting the town against the disease.

In the 1960s, the Millan artist Vittorio Viviani was struck by Casamassima’s uniqueness and began painting new works using the town’s centre as the backdrop. This played a part in reviving the centro storico’s fortunes and also resulted in a period of urbanisation in the town (up until then, most of its residents’ primary source of income had been from agriculture). A large shopping and commercial centre (‘Parco Commerciale Casamassima’) was also built on the edge of the town, although it’s attracted much criticism from locals who see it as an eyesore and are dismayed by the fact that many of its units remain empty.

Casamassima; ‘Il Paese Azzurro’.

This wasn’t my first visit to Casamassima though. Back in the summer, I had visited Villa Pagliaro; an imposing masseria built around 1870. ‘Masseria’ is the Pugliese word for a ‘fortified farmhouse’ and they are a common sight throughout the region. There is a different word for these sorts of buildings, depending on which area of Italy you live in so ‘masseria’ is very typically and exclusively Puglian. I had been given an Italian lesson (and delicious tomato and rosemary crostini) courtesy of one of its residents Tiziana, as well as a tour of the villa’s grounds – now mainly used for the cultivation of olives, cherries and when the season is right, Indian figs (or Barbary figs or the ‘prickly pear’). Tiziana’s partner’s father owns the masseria and had been brought up there so the family was determined to continue making their living as authentically as possible, rather than transforming the building into a luxury wedding venue or boutique hotel, like so many others in the area.

Villa Pagliaro, Casamassima.

However, this masseria also had a secret. During World War II, its top floors became something of an unofficial nightclub for Allied soldiers based in the area and was a place for them to hang out and socialise. As well as an old piano, the attic levels of Villa Pagliaro still contain a number of well-preserved wall paintings and murals from the 1940s. There is a great article about them on the fascinating Barese local history website Barinedita.

The WWII-era murals on the top floor of the masseria. Photos: Barinedita.

Triggiano

Triggiano is another small town in Puglia; about 10 km from Bari driving in the direction of Rutigliano with 14^th century origins. If you want a snapshot of daily life in a sleepy Italian town then it’s worth spending a few hours in Triggiano.

It’s actually larger than Casamassima (its population is circa 30,000 but somehow seems a lot quieter and quainter). Its outskirts are mainly non-descript concrete apartment blocks but the town’s centre boasts a number of Baroque 17^thcentury churches and a small centro storico. There are plenty of cafes to choose from for a quick espresso hit, as well as the usual delis, pasticcerie and macellerie you’d expect to find in any typical Italian town. Prices were actually slightly cheaper than in the larger cities like Bari and Lecce too. On my way home, I also drove through the nearby Noicattaro and at 5pm on a Saturday the attractive centre was bustling with people fetching supplies for their evening ahead. Perhaps a place to explore in greater detail in future.

Triggiano apparently also has important emigrant communities in both the United States and Venezuela. During the festival of the Madonna della Croce in late-September, families often return to the town to show their children their origins and to donate money to the locality.

Out and about in Triggiano.

Bronte

I spent ten days exploring Sicily in September before the start of the new school year and just after my mates from London Mark and Stu had visited me in Bari. The eight-hour drive through rugged and mountainous Calabria all the way to the ferry terminal at Villa San Giovanni was an experience in itself and I then spent time in Messina (a rough and ready port city but with good food), Cefalu (beautiful but touristy), Palermo (a fascinating, heaving multicultural city), Syracuse (steeped in ancient history and mythology, plus heavenly seafood), Fiumefreddo di Sicilia (um, The Godfather) and Catania (a lively, fun city full of hip hang-outs). However, it was the small town of Bronte, about an hour from Catania and lying in Mount Etna’s shadow that really stood out to me.

Bronte, Sicily.

Bronte is a town that revolves around the growing and harvesting of its very own ‘green gold’ – the pistachio nut. Bronte’s pistachio nuts are said to have a unique flavour (“the perfect balance between sweet and savoury”), texture and vibrant green colour that is incomparable to any other and they are sought-after by chefs all over the world.

Bronte’s position 760 metres above sea level and on the Western slopes of Mount Etna is said to contribute to its pistachios’ unique quality as the plants absorb nutrients and minerals from the soil containing old lava deposits. The cultivation of pistachios is a tradition that’s handed down from father to son and retrieving the nut from the tree is still done by hand and in some cases, by shaking the plant. As a result of this centuries-old and painstaking process, Bronte pistachios are DOP-certified (of course) and often fetch high prices. You will notice in Sicily that rather than parmesan or pecorino cheese, crushed pistachios will often be served on top of pasta dishes and you can pick up a bag of these pre-crushed at local markets for only a couple of euros.

The first impression of Bronte upon visiting is that it’s a very lush-looking and scenic place. It’s surrounded by green hills, olive groves and cactus fields, yet the ominous presence of Mount Etna is clearly visible from just about anywhere in the town. I stopped for lunch at a small café and picked up a panino, arancino, water and coffee for €2.50 and even though there were several shops dedicated to the humble pistachio nut, it didn’t seem like they were visited by many tourists (it is about one hour’s drive from Catania, around the other side of Mount Etna).

Mount Etna from the road to Bronte.

I took a walk around its quiet, hilly streets, passing the occasional tractor and trailer and through a park that overlooked some hills covered in green vegetation before picking up some of these hallowed pistachios for my family back in the UK. They were very tasty and succulent and were certainly a lot greener than the varieties you find in supermarkets.

Bronte and the surrounding countryside is well worth a visit if you are looking for something a little more unusual to do in Sicily. You can find out more about the town, its history and places to stay here.

Bronte, Sicily.

Gioia del Colle; a town built on cheese and wine

19 March 2021

Clive Drew

Living in Italy Travel No Comments

Exploring the path less-trodden

I’ve always been a little suspicious of the places that everyone says you simply have to visit and am naturally more drawn to the under-the-radar destinations that pass a lot of people by. Whilst the pristine towns close to Bari on the Adriatic Coast like Monopoli and Polignano a Mare are lovely places to have lunch and spend an afternoon, I much preferred exploring the less conspicuous nearby coastal towns Giovinazzo and Mola di Bari, or the misunderstood, slightly rundown, but thoroughly absorbing Taranto.

I’ve yet to visit Florence, Rome or Venice during my extended stay in Italy but I had a great time exploring Bologna, the backstreets of Lecce, Piacenza, Ravenna, Turin and Vasto. In the rugged state of Calabria, most tourists head for the picturesque clifftop settlement of Tropea. Instead I chose to divide my time between the backwater towns Belvedere Marittimo, Diamante and Scalea. I think you have a more authentic experience than in the towns purely oriented for tourists and you get a better feel for everyday Italian life and culture this way.

Despite the ongoing disruption and travel restrictions that have been imposed over this past year as a result of the pandemic, I’ve tried my very best to see and experience as much of Italy as I’ve possibly been able to (also, of course, only when it’s been safe to do so). For the early part of 2021, Puglia was classified as ‘zona gialla’ (‘yellow zone’) and we were not allowed to leave the region. Whilst this was naturally frustrating; it was also a chance to visit some of lesser-known towns within Bari’s immediate vicinity.

Gioia del Colle

I had been intrigued by Gioia del Colle (“Joy of the Hill”) ever since reading about it during my visit to Taranto last August. I had been told that Gioia was the go-to place in Puglia for buying the best fresh mozzarella and burrata (cream-filled mozzarella for the uninitiated) and that it was also famous for its red wine – the Gioia del Colle Primitivo.

I finally got around to visiting two weeks ago and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. Gioia del Colle is a charming small town with a population of 28,000, about 40km inland from Bari, driving down the Strada Statale 100 in the direction of Mottola and Massafra. Much of its prosperity going back hundreds of years has been as a result of agriculture and food production – cheese and wine, but also olive oil and pasta.

As with many Pugliese towns, its outskirts are nondescript and a tad industrial; casual urban sprawl, dotted with the odd mid-century concrete high-rise and petrol station. However, the quaint town centre is focused around the nucleus of the central Piazza Plebiscito and several ornate Baroque churches namely, Chiesa di San Francesco, Chiesa di San Rocco and Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. The latter was originally built in the 11^th century and then rebuilt in 1764 following a fire and acts as the city’s principal place of Christian worship. It’s also located in the oldest part of the city, on the edge of the claustrophobic residential maze of the Centro Storico and a stone’s throw from the Norman-Swabian Castle which has Byzantine origins. The castle is now home to the Gioia del Colle National Archaeological Museum.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Looking towards Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. 2.) The church’s interior. 3.) Inside Chiesa di San Francesco. 4.) Chiesa di San Rocco. 5.) Its ornate interior. 6.) The Norman-Swabian Castle.

I arrived in the town after lunch when all was still quiet due to the Italian South’s habitual early afternoon period of downtime, il pisolino. It wasn’t until nearer 5pm that the town whirred into action again, its caseifici and macellerie opening their doors for the second time that day, Chiesa Santa Maria Maggiore preparing for the early evening funeral of a local dignitary (the hearse was struggling to manoeuvre the corners of the medieval streets of the Centro Storico when I passed it) and the central piazza becoming a meeting places for both teenagers and uomini vecchi (“elderly men”), alike.

Piazza Plebiscito.

Gioia del Colle’s best-known export is its cheese and its mozzarella has even been awarded the much-coveted DOP (‘Denominazione d’Origine Protetta’) certification. This DOP label ensures that not only has the product been made with locally-sourced ingredients and by local farmers and artisans but that it has also been created using time-honoured traditional methods. Admittedly, Italy’s mild climate, all-year sunshine and fertile (and in some places, volcanic) soil makes it something of an agricultural nirvana and there are numerous different esteemed DOPs for any given product. Italy currently has 138 DOPs in total and over 40 for extra virgin olive oil alone.

Despite having started 2021 on something of a post-Christmas health-kick (rigorous daily exercise, curtailing the booze and copious amounts of oats, natural yoghurt and cider vinegar), I thought it would be rude not to delve into some of the dairified delights of Gioia’s cheese shops (known as ‘caseifici’). After some quick-iPhone led research I decided on ‘Caseificio Artigianale “Masseria Corvello” di Michele Spinelli’ on Via Gabriele d’Annunzio, a short walk from the town centre. It proved to be an excellent choice and I was reassured that rather than having a huge cabinet full of lots of different types of cheese, they stuck to a smaller number that they obviously knew were really special.

The counter at Caseificio Artignale ‘Masseria Corvello’, Gioia del Colle.

I picked up some Gioia del Colle DOP mozzarella, a chunk of provolone, a small cylinder of the salty Pugliese semi-soft cheese Cacioricotta and an unusual white cheese that the lady behind the counter described as “formaggi fermentato”. The small individual pearls of mozzarella were delicious and succulent enough to enjoy as a starter with just a drizzle of olive oil, cracked black pepper and some green valerianella leaves (cooking with it seemed like sacrilege). The provolone was ideal for grating into pasta and for baking with and it’s long-lasting – there’s still plenty left. Cacioricotta has been a favourite Pugliese cheese of mine for a while and is equally tasty served with cooked orecchiette and tomatoes (the classic dish Orecchiette al sugo), or on its own with slices of fruit such as figs. The formaggi fermentato was a real revelation; a pungent white cheese that was soft in texture but had the saltiness and bitterness of a strong Roquefort.

Gioia is also famed for its wine and in particular its Primitivo variety which is typical of Puglia and ‘DOC’-certified – ‘Denominazione di origine controllata’. It is required to have a minimum alcohol level of 13% and it is thought to have been popularised in the area by monks who found conditions suitable for cultivating the vine during the Middle Ages. I didn’t buy any wine during my visit to Gioia but did see a bottle of its Primitivo for sale in Bari a week later for €23. Perhaps one for next time I’m celebrating.

I did manage to track down the former site of the Cassano Distillery on the edge of town though. In the late 19^thcentury, Gioia del Colle was renowned for not only its wine but also its cognac and spirits using leftover wine that had been distilled. The Cassano Distillery was opened in a former farm in 1891 and thrived until 1914 when the business transferred into the ownership of the Taranto Family and the distillery then subsequently fell into disrepair. It was transferred to the health authority in 1970 to be converted into a hospital but then was taken over by the municipality of Gioia del Colle in 1997. It was renovated in 2006 and is today protected by the Ministry of Culture and Environment as a site of monumental and environmental heritage and hosts concerts and events. It was unfortunately closed up and deserted when I visited but it would be very interesting to explore in non-Covid times.

8km to the north-east of Gioia is the WWF-protected woodland area Boschi Romanazzi. I thought I’d take a quick detour via there on my way home and as the light began to fade. The main road forked right down an unmade road, took me past a grand-looking pair of gates, a roadside shrine to the Madonna and then a lonely crumbling masseria (someone’s dream home in the waiting, before opening out into an expanse of deciduous trees and green fields. It actually looked quintessentially English and was very different to the arid plains and olive groves that surround Bari. A fox even jumped over a hedge in front of my car and for a moment I had to pull over to Google “are there foxes in Italy?”. For some reason, I thought they only stuck to Northern Europe.

The crumbling masseria I passed on my way to Boschi Romanazzi.

I continued down a track marked by a sign with a large red circle and a white line running across it and then clocked a farmer on a rusty-looking tractor who was finishing his day’s work. He eyed my bright red car with an English registration plate suspiciously and I decided it was the right time to turn around and head back to the main road. I filled the tank up with petrol, got back on the SS100 and made good time getting back to Bari, eager to be home ahead of the 10pm Covid curfew.

Boschi Romanazzi, Gioia del Colle.

As with many obscure Italian towns, Gioia del Colle actually has a tenuous link to Hollywood celebrity too. Sylvester Stallone’s grandparents Silvestro (a barber in the town) and Pulchiera were born and raised in Gioia before emigrating to America in 1930. There is even a mysterious photo in existence of Sylvester, alongside his father and brother in 1965, said to be taken in the town. Its location has never been able to be confirmed though.

Gioia del Colle is definitely worth a visit if you are in Puglia. It’s driveable in a day from the cities Bari, Brindisi and Taranto and there’s enough in the town to even make a relaxing weekend break. It might be a good idea to fast leading up to it though, bearing in mind the calories you are likely to consume in decadent cheeses and rich red wine.

The streets near to Gioia del Colle’s Centro Storico and the town hall (“Comune di Gioia del Colle”).

In my next post; I’ll continue the theme of exploring under-the-radar places and will talk a little about Puglia’s “blue town” Casamassima, nearby Triggiano and a small town under Mount Etna’s shadow in Sicily whose economy revolves around “the green gold” – the humble pistachio nut.

Around the world in 10 unique music venues

25 February 2021

Clive Drew

Alternative City Guide Music Travel No Comments

In my last post, I waxed lyrical about Jamboree; a unique venue that started life in the Cable Street Studios complex in Limehouse and has recently announced its return to the Kings Cross area of London.

“Every now and then, you find a music venue that has a certain special aura and is simply unlike any other you’ve been to before. Sometimes it’s unique in its interior or location, sometimes it’s the warmth and generosity of the people running the place and other times it’s the programming of the events and the venue’s cultural or historical significance. Jamboree in Limehouse was one of those.”
‘The return of Jamboree’ (Set Your Own Scene, 22nd February 2021)

I want to now shine a spotlight on some of the other special venues that have particularly stood out to me over the years, either from playing gigs at them myself or watching as a punter. Here is a snapshot of ten that immediately spring to mind from Bari to Bedford, via LA and Pune, Maharashtra.

I’ve included links wherever possible to the venues in question – please do take a look and find out more about them! They need all the support they can get after this pandemic year.

*On stage at Clwb Ifor Bach with The Screenbeats. May 2007 (photo: Ed Salter).*

Clwb Ifor Bach – Cardiff

I had been reading about Cardiff’s legendary ‘Clwb’ (also affectionately known locally as ‘The Welsh Club’) for years prior to going to university in the city and it lived up to expectations as the beating heart of the city’s alternative music scene. For at least the first year of university, the highlight of my week was going to The Dudes Abide night on Fridays where the DJ was usually Gary Anderson who also ran the hallowed Cardiff indie-pop night Twisted by Design at the nearby Dempsey’s (now bizarrely Gareth Bale’s sports bar Elevens) on Saturdays and Cardiff’s famous rugby pub the City Arms on Thursdays. Through regularly going to these nights as an 18-year-old I discovered Belle & Sebastian’s back catalogue, became obsessed with The Supremes and tracks like ‘The Rat’ by The Walkmen, ‘Happy Together’ by The Turtles and ‘The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth’ by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah became as ubiquitous to my ears as commercial radio’s airplay of Kelly Clarkson’s ‘Since U Been Gone’ around that same time.

The Welsh Club spanned three floors catering to pretty much every genre possible on various nights of the week. I spent on average six hours a week here between 2005 and 2008 and even met Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr there in 2008 after one of his first gigs as a new member of The Cribs at the nearby Student’s Union. I was a little tongue-tied to really say much to him other than ask for a photo but I had a better chat with Ryan Jarman from The Cribs a year earlier when we were both watching Everett True (the journalist who introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love) and Manics biographer Simon Price DJ in the downstairs room. Ryan remembered an early regional newspaper interview I did with them at the Reading Fez Club back in 2004 and the main topic of conversation was how passé and just plain wrong the current Sex Pistols reunion was (The Cribs had recently supported them at Brixton Academy).

Now Clwb is the subject of some exciting new expansion plans involving the venue taking over the derelict building next door. Hopefully these plans will cement Womanby Street’s position as Cardiff’s cultural quarter (as well as the longstanding hub of the annual Sŵn Festival) for many decades to come.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) Clwb Ifor Bach, Womanby Street, Cardiff. 2) The downstairs floor during Swn Festival 2012. 3.) Telegram getting ready to play a Jack Rocks show at Clwb for Swn Festival 2015.

Shisha Jazz Café – Pune, India

I stumbled upon the Shisha Jazz Café whilst staying in Pune, Maharashtra for a few days in November 2019. Part of the ABC Farms complex in the hip Koregaon Park district of the city that actually contains a couple of live music venues, the café was one of my favourite hangouts from my trip to India and provided some much-needed calm after a week of rushing around hectic Mumbai. Part-jazz café, part-jungle treehouse; there were several huge trees growing through its floor, rustic tapestries and kitsch lanterns hanging from the rafters and its wooden walls were adorned with pictures of the likes of Chick Corea, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans and Sun Ra. It is also home to the Pune International Jazz Festival. It’ll be one of the first places I head to when I visit Pune again.

The one-of-a-kind Shisha Jazz Cafe. Pune, India.

Band On The Wall – Manchester

A national institution as far as independent music venues go, Band On The Wall on Swan Street in Manchester’s Northern Quarter has been hosting live music since at least the 1930s. The venue got its name from the fact that the musicians originally played on a raised stage halfway up the pub’s wall! The venue has had a long association with jazz, blues, folk and punk and today prides itself on hosting an eclectic array of artists from a wide range of genres. I saw tabla player Saleel Tembe perform there in 2018 and before the concert he hosted an interactive workshop with the audience – that’s just the kind of place Band On The Wall is. Now a registered charity, the venue was awarded £3.2 million in 2007 by Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund to transform into a music venue for the 21^st century.

Saleel Tembe at Band on The Wall, August 2018 and a band quite literally playing on the wall at the venue circa 1946 (photo: The Band On The Wall archive).

Passing Clouds – Dalston, London

Forever immortalised on screen as the location for the filming of Super Hans’ notorious “juice cleanse stag do” scene in the cult British comedy series Peep Show, Passing Clouds was a community-run arts venue off the Kingsland Road in Dalston, East London.

Opened in 2006; the venue hosted musical nights, as well as community-led initiatives including the ‘Permaculture Picturehouse’, healing and self-development workshops and swing dancing and instrument lessons. Housed in the former printworks of the Hackney Gazette, two notable gigs at Passing Clouds for me were Sun Ra’s Arkestra led by the then 91-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen and the Brixton-based Effra Hall Jazz Band. There was a blizzard during the latter gig and a subsequent snow fight ensued afterwards, culminating with my friends and I being branded “bumbaclarts” by an angry Rastafarian gentleman who was accidentally hit by a stray snowball whilst enjoying a smoke outside.

Passing Clouds was sadly closed down and boarded up in 2016 and is now The Jago.

*Passing Clouds, just before its closure.*

Ex Caserma Liberata – Bari, Italy

In a way, Bari’s equivalent of London’s former Passing Clouds venue, Ex Caserma Liberata is a squatted space located in the city’s former Rossani Barracks. Whatever your political persuasion is regarding people squatting in derelict buildings, it’s difficult to argue that Ex Caserma Liberata isn’t a hive of creativity and home to a friendly and welcoming community. In non-Covid times; the space consists of a music venue that hosts both bands and DJs, a permaculture garden, impressive sculptures and street art, workshop spaces and even an indoor skate ramp. It hosts everything from punk festivals to dub nights to poetry readings and political meetings. The site is set to be transformed by the authorities into an urban park and public library in the not-too-distant future at a reputed cost of €450 million so the Barese need to make the most of this unique space whilst they still can.

Ex Caserma Liberata and one of Bari’s most interesting emerging bands Strebla performing there in 2019.

Hootananny – Brixton, London

In 2007, a huge Victorian pub on the corner of Effra Road and Brixton Water Lane which had previously been known as The George Canning and then The Hobgoblin became Hootananny. Now run by a Scottish family, ‘Hoots’ dedicated itself to live music, particularly (but definitely not limited to) the world music side of things. You never know quite what you’ll see when you go to Hootannany but on a Friday or Saturday night it’s guaranteed to be lively. Boasting a large hostel on the upper floors (what a great idea if you were a music-loving traveller) and a huge garden out the front, you can choose between whether you soak up the music indoors or sit and enjoy a cold beer and some excellent Caribbean food on the benches outside. I’ve had some of my best nights out in London here and it was also a packed place to watch the England football team’s unexpected run to the semi-finals World Cup 2018.

Hootannany, Effra Road, Brixton, London.

Sound Department – Taranto, Italy

I’ve written about seeing Berlin’s Ellen Allien at the Sound Department Club just outside Taranto before, but this is a truly unique place. Located about five miles outside of the city near to the Italian naval docks and hidden out-of-sight amongst olive groves and Mediterranean scrubland, the venue appears to be entirely made from shipping containers. There were two separate live rooms; one that was low-lit and a distinctly industrial affair and the other which was brighter and more house-flavoured. At about 3am, the club’s security staff winched up the metal sides of the venue to transform it into an open-air space and an hour later, the roof slid back to let in the early morning Pugliese sunlight.

Tbilisi DJ Newa’s Boiler Room set live from Sound Department, Taranto. December 2019.

The Satellite – Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA

Located in LA’s at-times, self-consciously hip Silver Lake neighbourhood, The Satellite made its name in the 1990s as the famed Spaceland venue. Its first ever gig in 1995 featured The Foo Fighters and Beck, it hosted early shows by The White Stripes and The Silversun Pickups and it was the venue choice for Arthur Lee & Love’s comeback show after Lee’s release from prison in 2001. It also starred in the Jim Carey film ‘Yes Man’ as the venue where Zooey Deschanel’s character’s band played their live shows. We saw The Bulls there who played a bemusing shoegaze cover of ‘Alright’ by Supergrass – I think we were in the minority in the audience by actually being familiar with the original version.

The Satellite was quite similar to many British venues of a similar size but everything was just nicer, albeit in a slightly sanitised, yet typically Los Angelan way. The toilets were clean and didn’t smell, the floor wasn’t sticky and awash with stale beer and there was even a pool table at the back of the room for in-between bands. Instead of a greasy burger van being stationed outside, there was of course, a converted silver Airstream caravan serving up delicious tacos. Once the epicentre of Silver Lake’s alternative music scene, there are now plans afoot to transform The Satellite into a restaurant.

The Angel – Bedford

From sunny LA to Bedford. My old band The Shake was offered a show at The Angel back in summer 2006. The venue on Bedford Broadway had hosted Oasis back in 1994 (it was still extremely proud of this) and was enjoying a new lease of life after a refurbishment and recently hosting Razorlight whilst they were still on their ascendency (and still credible). We had been due to support The Heights, a former Guardian New Band of the Week and Best Before Records signing. However, they had pulled out a couple of weeks before and we were moved up the bill to become the impromptu headliner.

Despite most of the audience originally buying their tickets to see The Heights, it was one of the best shows we ever did and we played to a packed and receptive room. Despite Bedford not exactly being a hotbed for rock and roll, the venue was clearly a labour of love and had a great soundsystem. We got paid, given free beer and even got a cheery hug from the promoter after the show! Sadly, The Angel shut down a few years later (it had stiff competition from the long-established Esquires venue around the corner in the town) and is now Doorstep Dolci, a café specialising in “American-Belgian Waffles, oven-baked cookie dough, artisan gelato and milkshakes.”

*The former location of The Angel music venue, Bedford.*

The Troubadour – Earl’s Court, London

The Troubadour on Old Brompton Road, West London is best-known in music circles as being the venue for Bob Dylan’s first ever UK gig in 1962. Opened in 1954 as a coffee house, it was one of the city’s prominent folk venues of the time hosting performances from Joni Mitchell, Bert Jansch, Davey Graham and Sandy Denny, as well as the more raucous Jimi Hendrix, Charlie Watts, Sammy Davis Jr (slightly more raucous) and Led Zeppelin – the latter would jam at the club after shows at the nearby Earls Court Arena. Today, it retains many of its original features and décor but has been expanded to include a restaurant / café, outdoor dining space, small art gallery as well as the 135-capacity downstairs venue. I played here in 2010 and contemporary artists to come through its doors in recent years include Florence Welch, Ellie Goulding, Adele, Jamie T and Ed Sheeran, with its small size making it ideal for showcases. The Troubadour was also the inspiration for the Los Angeles venue of the same name, with it even copying the distinctive typeface above the door. Time to put its London counterpart on the musical map again.

The Trobadour’s interior, virtually untouched since 1954 and Ronnie Wood and Mick Taylor playing the club in 2013.

The ongoing search for the perfect ‘curry’

8 February 2021

Clive Drew

Food London Travel 2 Comments

‘Curry‘
Noun: “A dish of meat, vegetables, etc., cooked in an Indian-style sauce of hot-tasting spices and typically served with rice.”
Verb: “To prepare or flavour (food) with a sauce of hot-tasting spices.”

(definition from Oxford Languages)

Origins: “Curry is an anglicised form of the Tamil word ‘kari’ meaning ‘sauce’ or ‘relish for rice’ that uses the leaves of the curry tree (Murraya koenigii). The word kari is also used in other Dravidian languages, namely in Malayalam, Kannada and Kodava with the meaning of ‘vegetables (or meat) of any kind (raw or boiled), curry’”.
(A Dravidian Etymological Dictionary)

*Chicken patiala at the Dakshin Bar & Grill, Mumbai. Contender for the perfect curry? I think so…*

As with so many other things in modern popular culture, the word ‘curry’ is a bastardised English umbrella term. One that was created to describe all manner of distinctly different types of cuisine from the Indian subcontinent. Or to quote food historian Lizzie Collingham and the author of the definitive tome ‘Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors’; “most likely an English bastardisation of a Portuguese bastardisation of the Tamil world ‘kari’ – which was used to describe spices or seasoning.” So, there you go.

In Britain, ‘curry’ grew vastly in popularity during the Victorian era and Queen Victoria was said to be a great lover of spiced dishes. In fact, she even employed two Indian chefs to prepare her curried lunches especially. The ‘classic’ British buffet dish and sandwich-filler; Coronation Chicken stems from this royal association after it was created for Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation banquet in 1953. It is thought that it was directly inspired by the Jubilee Chicken dish which was created for George V’s silver jubilee in 1935 and also contained cold cuts of chicken, curry powder and mayonnaise. Creative cookery at its most innovative.

The number of ‘curry houses’ or more upmarket ‘Indian restaurants‘ started to increase in the 1950s and 1960s before reaching a peak in the 1970s. Part of the success of these new curry houses was down to the fact that they still served alcohol well into the early hours of the morning at a time when most pubs would stop serving at 11pm. In 1983, there were over 3,500 Indian restaurants open in the UK and today Bangladeshis still run approximately 85-90 percent of these eateries.

*The famous ‘Curry Mile’ of Indian restaurants. Rusholme, Manchester.*

However, the food in the majority of Indian restaurants has been anglicised and tailored for British palates and you would struggle to find a lot of the dishes on the menu in India. For example, Chicken Tikka Masala is thought to have been invented in Britain and directly derived from the Northern Indian dish Butter Chicken, whilst the British Indian variation of Vindaloo is much spicier than the original which was a key component of Goan cuisine and was created especially for curry houses, with the addition of potatoes and chilli peppers. The Balti on the other hand makes no secret of its humble origins, being introduced to menus in Birmingham in the early 1970s (although it may have been inspired by Northern Pakistani cuisine).

I’m going to contradict myself now and will talk about ‘curry’ or ‘curries’ for the rest of this article. I personally find that there is nothing more satisfying to cook than a curry. From softening the onions and garlic and then adding the spices to form the base, to browning the meat or adding vegetarian substitutes such as chickpeas or lentils, to adding tomatoes or stock and gently simmering the stew, the whole process is incredibly therapeutic.

The food we eat is intrinsically tied up with memories too. Whenever we would visit my paternal grandmother who was half-Indian and raised in Meghalaya, a curry or dhal would inevitably be on the stove and the fragrant smell would hit you as soon as you walked into the house. My dad was delighted when I started cooking and bringing home curries in Food Technology classes at school and we discovered that cardamom pods were a fine addition to a Chicken Madras – although there is some dispute about whether the dish actually originated in Madras (now Chennai) or once again, in the British curry houses of the 1960s. My dad had rarely eaten cardamom pods as a youngster because it turned out that Grandma didn’t like them! Although initially wary of hot food, my mum also became partial to milder curries after meeting my dad and she would often make tasty meals for us like the sweet and sour Hawaiian Chicken on a Friday or Saturday night – learning many of the recipes from her Indian mother-in-law.

I remember experiencing a proper high-end Indian restaurant for the first time whilst studying in Cardiff too. My sister Rachel and brother-in-law Stuart had visited me for the weekend in March 2006 and after a day of sinking pints and watching the Six Nations rugby in various pubs on the side roads off St Mary’s Street, they treated me to a slap-up meal at the city’s Spice Quarter, located on the site of the former Brain’s Brewery. The uber-attentive service and having the table tended to by three or four waiters at any one time gave me an idea of what to expect when I eventually visited India some 13 years later.

Talking of university, there was also the much-loved but at times slightly questionable Kismet. Located on the rough and ready Cardiff thoroughfare City Road, Kismet became the venue of choice for various friends’ birthday celebrations each year. Unbelievably cheap even for a student’s budget, a main course would set you back in the region of £3.50, plus a pound for a naan or rice. Once my friend Emily and I ordered a bottle of red wine to share and two arrived on our table. We apologised and sent one back, only to be told that it was buy one, get one free on bottles of wine that evening. Of course. At £5 per bottle, we were not complaining. Kismet also specialised in takeaway ‘doggy bags’ as their portions were rather on the large side. I can still visualise my old housemate Rhys running into the restaurant’s kitchen after a poor waiter, convinced that he was about to throw his leftover food away and not into the prerequisite doggy bag. How the bars or clubs we went to afterwards felt about having to contend with a cloakroom full of takeaway curry bags remains uncertain. Kismet has since closed and is no longer a fixture of student life in Cardiff.

*The much-missed Kismet restaurant. City Road, Cardiff.*

During the London years, going ‘for a curry’ became a regular part of post-work socialising. I was once chuffed to find myself dining next to former Yardbirds guitarist and ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ singer Jeff Beck at the famous Gaylord Restaurant on Mortimer Street. The restaurant opened its doors in 1966, was a one-time favourite of The Beatles and even in 2015 it was old-school in every detail – the food and service was excellent though. Sadly Gaylord shut its doors in 2019 after 53 years of serving “upscale Mughlai cuisine” originating from North India.

*The former Gaylord Restaurant, Fitzrovia, London. A one-time favourite of The Beatles (and Jeff Beck).*

Other notable London curry houses included the huge, raucous and noisy Pakistani eatery Tayyabs in Whitechapel; a place that was as much renowned for its beer as its food (you could order it by the crate if you were celebrating) and the quaint, charming Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street in Fitzrovia. Opened in 1954, the place is like stepping back in time and is still run by members of the same family today. The Indian Veg (or Indian Veg Bhelpoori House in full) on Chapel Market in Islington specialised in no-frills, yet tasty all-you-can-eat vegetarian fare for £6.50 – its walls covered with pro-vegetarianism slogans and propaganda posters. Its proximity to The Lexington venue made it an ideal pre-gig fuelling station of choice.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The queue for Tayyabs in Whitechapel. 2.) The Agra Restaurant on Whitfield Street, London. 3.) The one-in-a-kind Indian Veg, Islington, London. 4.) The Indian Veg’s propaganda-laden interior.

Then there were the two restaurants that also offered rooms for the night as well; the Indian YMCA on Fitzroy Square (I worked around the corner from here for a couple of years so it became a favourite spot for lunch) and The India Club on The Strand. Both are long-standing London institutions serving hearty and wallet-friendly Indian food. Situated up an unassuming staircase at 143 Strand, the latter was launched in 1951 by The Indo League with the aim of “furthering Indo-British friendship in the post-independence era” and as with the Agra Restaurant, it is like stepping into a time capsule. Given its history, I have often found myself wondering if my grandparents would have visited The India Club in the 1950s. Let’s hope that all of these well-loved London institutions can survive the current hospitality industry crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Clockwise (from top left); 1.) The bar at The India Club, 143 Strand, London. 2.) The India Club’s dining room – practically unchanged since 1951. 3.) The canteen at The Indian YMCA, Fitzroy Square, Central London.

On my trip to India at the end of 2019, it would be an understatement to say that I ate well. However, I often didn’t eat at fancy places, instead preferring local recommendations or low-key, hidden-away gems. The food I ate with my relatives in Shillong was delicious and included regional specialities such as Doh khleh (a sort-of salad made with parts of the pig’s head) and Doh sniang nei iong – pork cooked with sesame. However, the food in Meghalaya was actually milder and not as spicy as in the rest of India. In Kerala in the south, a lot of the dishes were lighter and more fragrant, perhaps as a result of using coconut oil rather than ghee, whereas in Goa fish and more Portuguese-influenced fare reigned supreme. Mumbai and Pune were culinary melting pots, as with any other metropolis, whilst in Chennai there were numerous options when it came to street food, as well as fiery appetisers like the city’s signature Chicken 65 (invented by the Head Chef at the Buhari Hotel and allegedly containing 65 chillis per kilogramme of chicken).

Just a snapshot of some of the dishes I had the privilege of trying during my visit to India.

However, the distinction of being the tastiest dish I sampled was reserved for the Dakshin Bar & Kitchen; a simple Punjabi restaurant off a busy main road in the Fort district of Mumbai that had the Indian Super League playing on big screens on the wall. I ordered Chicken Patiala one evening without thinking too much about it and it was one of the best things I ate during my time in India. It was unusual too; a thin egg omelette prepared and then cooked in the highly-spiced rich, creamy chicken curry. All washed down with an ice-cold Kingfisher, of course.

*The Dakshin Bar & Grill, Fort, Mumbai.*

Over these past 18 months both in India and now in Italy, some of my favourite discoveries have been places that I’ve stumbled upon by chance or that have been a word-of-mouth recommendation from a local. The delicious Chicken Patiala at Dakshin was no exception.

To find out how to make the dish, check out the short video below courtesy of Chef Smita at Get Curried. In my next post, I’ll be sharing a recipe of my own!

‘Il Pasqualino’; Alberobello’s famous sandwich

The path less-trodden; part II

Gioia del Colle; a town built on cheese and wine

Around the world in 10 unique music venues

The ongoing search for the perfect ‘curry’

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