A secret bar has appeared under the hall of the most famous ethnic restaurant in Florence, a century after the Prohibition era.
Too often when you think of a tourist city, like Florence, you slip into clichés. Restaurants opened ad hoc to attract the disoriented customers who, when visiting the city, are looking for a typical meal, a real souvenir that more and more people like to keep in their memories.
The real city, the one frequented by locals and connoisseurs, is often located just outside the historic center and is much more colorful and lively than the common imagination. We are talking about a reality, gastronomic and otherwise, enriched by first-generation ethnic entrepreneurs who are rewriting the geography of the offer, cleaning it of stereotypes. One of these is certainly You are, Peruvian restaurant led by Francys Salazar, capable of conquering the demanding palates of Florence, managing in a short time to expand his project, demonstrating that international fine dining cuisine is not the exclusive prerogative of Japan.
Francys Salazar, the face of Sevi.
Initially a student of Fabio Barbaglini, known in the city for having followed - among many others - the kitchens of Gilli and Paszkosky, began to make people talk about him when he managed the proposal ofi S'BAM Ceviche & Cocktail on the terrace of The Social Hub together with Luca Manni, at the time Bar Manager of the Hotel. His personal journey began a few hundred meters from the current restaurant, at that time Sevi was little more than a street food that offered a few seats, but was capable of serving the best South American proposals in the whole of Tuscany.
success was immediate and, always together with Josephine Condori in the dining room, decides to expand: a much larger restaurant, an open kitchen and a desire to make quality a real mantra even if this means having higher prices than the competition.
The restaurant and the offer.
The upper room is modern, functional and welcoming. The light tones are relaxing and the large open kitchen - on the room and on the street - enhances the whole experience. The menu is a dance between the traditional dishes of Peru, native land of Francys, – such as the Ceviche made with catch of the day, leche de tigre, ají limo, cilantro, cancha, choclo, sweet potato puree and marinated onion – or the Octopus Anticuchero.
The underground cocktail bar
However, those who work in the right direction see their universe in constant growth and evolution and almost like a gift for the first birthday of the new Sevi headquarters, the underground cocktail bar has arrived.
Just below the main hall of the restaurant, Sevi Interior, he is ready to follow a path parallel to the project and, in a certain sense, influencing it by allowing himself to be influenced. The new cocktail bar with about 40 seats, elegant and refined, offers carefully prepared tapas, such as the Bao con chicharron (low-temperature cooked pork shoulder, chili sauce, nikkei truffle mayonnaise, onion salad) or the Panko octopus served with anticuchera mayonnaise and lime gel, in addition to the possibility of ordering half portions from the main menu. The cocktail list features the signature of Luca Manni, together with his current team bar manager of the Valenza Group, and we asked him to tell us about it.
Hi Luca, how did your friendship with Francys begin?
Francys and I met a while ago, when I was managing the bar and rooftop bar of the Student Hotel - now The Social Hub -. At the time, the supervising chef was the great Fabio Barbaglini, a man who knows what it means to work and who, when he sees something valid in you, lets you have free rein, bringing Francys and her Peruvian cuisine to our spaces. I was immediately enchanted by her cuisine, with its unforgettable, absurd flavors. When the first Sevi opened years later, I rushed there to relive that feeling. Then, when he changed address, he told me about his dream of opening this "secret", hidden cocktail bar and asked me for advice on how to organize it.
And there you decided you could help him?
Yes, also because often advice is an end in itself. So without thinking twice I ask the guys of Paszkowski who had met Francys, and 5/6 other guys if they wanted to give me a hand and so we decided to help him.
Can you tell us about the new cocktail list?
We made the first two cocktails, and now we are coming out with a menu that is complete in my opinion with another 6 drinks. The great classics remain so as not to distort the offer and the work done to date. We started with a "simple" list so to speak but nothing stops us from increasing, removing or adding. The goal is to bring the bar to the highest level where Francys arrived with the Sevi restaurant and to do this it will take time because the level of Francys is very high, but we are definitely on the right track.
Conceptually we started from very simple elements, we wanted talk about Peru and Italy and even better about Tuscany. We tried to limit the choice of products to these two areas, depriving ourselves of many possibilities. We started from the preparations of Francys' kitchen to reuse them on the bar to fully connect, uniting in a single flow of thought.
The cocktail list
The paper is structured as a bridge between Italian and Andean culture, of which it is a clear example. “The Pisconi” with pisco, red bitter, Martini Rubino and leche de tigre perfume.
There is no shortage of intrepid and courageous proposals, characterised by elements of Peruvian culture but distant from the world of mixology such as the leche de tigre with aji amarillo, used in the preparation of Ceviche by Sevi's kitchen, which enriches the “Macchu pisco” Pisco, lime cordial and Inca Kola based cocktail
or it “Yuzu from the Andes” with Pisco, leche de tigre with aji amarillo, yuzu, sangria soda.
Must try the “Don Jose Garibaldi” with Campari, orange, lime juice, sambuca closed with a beer velvet.
Contributing to the round trip to Peru is live music that frames an admirable picture, the reality of Sevi.
Luca, what's your favorite drink from Sevi?
I would tell you Machu Pisco.
It is an easy drink, low alcohol content, has a sour part, a spicy part and a sweet part. Both from the name and the ingredients it is clear that we wanted to put Peru at the center, bringing together in a single drink history and tradition (Pisco), culinary culture (leche de tigre), and habits of the people by inserting inka kola, the most popular drink in all of Peru.
