house-cured salumi.

the care behind the cuts.

We love salumi.  

It's not just because it’s delicious. It is because the process of making it is, in our opinion, an art. A delicate, complex science that constantly challenges us. When manteca was being dreamed into reality, the idea of having a glass salumeria somewhere in the restaurant was always a constant. We wanted a devoted space in which we could perfect our skills in curing, push our techniques, and play with flavour combinations. It is hard now to think about manteca without the glass box of deliciousness on our lower floor.  

what is salumi anyway?

Salumi is the collective word for different types of meat cured by salt. Some types of salumi that we make include salami, coppa, bresaola and pancetta – among others. These are all products originally from Italy, where people have been curing for centuries. The oldest written account comes courtesy of Varro, a Roman intellectual. He wrote of “minced meat, stuffed into casing”, which the Roman soldiers learned to produce from the southern populations. Beyond being a thrifty way to preserve food for longer periods of time, the use of salt to suck out moisture is also a way to bump up flavour. The cured sausage left behind is the perfect combination of salt, fat and flavour.  

how does curing work?

Curing begins by working with exceptional quality meat. You cannot produce good salumi if the animal you are working with has not lived a happy life, feeding on a wide variety of flora and fauna. Then, select your cut: different types of salumi are made with different parts of the animal. We mainly work with pork, utilising the cuts that are not destined for the grill in our house cures. Cheeks make guanciale. Coppa is made with the shoulder muscle. and so on.  

how to make coppa.

A staple we always have on the menu is coppa. To make this, we remove the meat from the bone before it is weighed and rubbed with 3% of its weight in salt. After 3 weeks, it is washed of excess salt then stuffed into a beef bung [ cleaned intestine sack ], pricked of any excess air, and trussed together. This is then placed in the salumeria, which is a room with controlled humidity to draw out the moisture and gently cure the meat. Before it goes in, the coppa is weighed and recorded. Over the coming days and weeks, our chefs take meticulous note of the gradually reducing mass until it has been shrunk by at least 35% of its original weight.  

Then, it's time for the taste test. The best part. We continuously question our methods and recipes, experimenting with new herbs and spices for our salami, for example.

manteca’s salumi.

Our salumeria offering constantly changes with what's tasting best at the moment. The best way is to do the full flight via a sharing plate and sample the best cuts of the moment.

you can also watch co-founder and chef, chris, in action making coppa over on our youtube channel.