"Like a dream come true": Chesterfield restaurant cooks up special meal for hometown Italian club Palermo FC
A Chesterfield restaurant catered for a very special fixture last week when they were asked to deliver a taste of home to the biggest football team on the island of Sicily.
Palermo FC, one of Italy’s oldest clubs, were in town on Friday, July 26, to play a pre-season friendly against Leicester City at the SMH Group Stadium, and after a 1-0 victory over their Premier League opponents there was only one place to call for their post-match meal – Sicily Restaurant on Sheffield Road.
Monica Sardisco, who opened the restaurant with husband Peppe Barone in 2019 after meeting in the local hospitality sector, said: “I’m from Palermo, Peppe’s from Catania, and all our staff are from Sicily. It felt unbelievable a team from my home city would be here in Chesterfield.
“We couldn’t get to the match because it was Friday night, when we’re very busy, but a couple of days before the match they asked us if we could make food and bring it to the stadium. When we told our pizza chef he started to cry.”
They may have been tears of joy for chef Alex del Vecchio but the order was also a daunting tactical challenge.
Monica said: “There were 50 people in the group and we had to plan for all of it alongside our normal Friday night customers, and be ready to deliver it at the right time. We’re not a massive restaurant so it was a bit hard for us.
“We were lucky that my mamma, Maria, is visiting at the moment. She helped us make some very authentic pasta, anelletti al forno, which is a Palermo speciality with ragu, mozzarella, aubergines and peas, all baked together.
“When the match finished they rang and said they were ready and we rushed over there with trays of pasta and 25 Margherita pizzas.”
Palermo finished sixth in Italy’s second tier Serie B last season and are owned by City Football Group – the Abu Dhabi royal wealth behind Manchester City – so it would be no surprise if they had a taste for the more refined things in life.
As it turned out, there is nothing finer than home cooking just like mamma used to make it.
Monica said: “We were expecting them to be maybe a bit posh, but they were all very kind and friendly. That was the best thing, meeting them all. They hugged me and my mum, Alex went round and spoke to all the players he knew from watching the team.
“They were over the moon with the food, and said the food made them feel they were already back in Palermo. One of the players ate two portions of pasta and the ‘mister’ said he would have to run a lot tomorrow.”
She added: “They signed shirts for us and gave us gifts, and then the club put a video of it out on their official social media too, so we were getting messages from all our friends in Palermo. It was like a dream come true”
Winner of a TripAdvisor Travellers Choice award for 2023, Sicily Restaurant is open every evening Tuesday to Saturday.
For menu details, more information and bookings, go to sicilyrestaurantchesterfield.co.uk.