Love at first bite

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What started out as making ciabatta on a cooking show turned into a rising romance between two food lovers. A wedding and a few months later, husband-and-wife duo Veralda and Fortunato Mazzone embarked on a new, exciting journey … opening a taste of Italy in the heart of Lynnwood.

For Veralda and Fortunato Mazzone, better known as Vee and Forti, it was love at first sight … and bite.

“We met on TV. Really! I was invited as a guest on the cooking insert Forti presents for DEKATv. A few days afterwards we had dinner. The ‘vibe’ was tangible … and the rest is history,” chuckles Vee.

These two are no newbies to the restaurant industry. Forti is an award-winning chef, wine master and restaurateur behind some of our city’s favourite fine dining restaurants, including Forti Too, which Forti opened during lockdown and which scooped the Best New Restaurant title in the Best of Pretoria Readers’ Choice Awards last year.

Vee, on the other hand, is a marketer and public relations specialist, and also quite the foodie after working in the hospitality industry.

Just a stone’s throw away from Forti Too, you’ll find their latest venture, Vee & Forti Wine Bar, Deli and Liquor Emporium. The couple explained that the reason behind opening Vee & Forti was that wine bars and delis are quite commonplace in Forti’s native Italy and other European countries, but not something you are likely to find locally.

“It is the type of place we would want to visit, and we know our friends and customers would want to go. It is for this reason we created it. And because we love to feed people!”

A visit to this charming deli and liquor emporium makes you feel like you’ve escaped to Italy for a while. Apart from being welcomed like a long-lost family member, you are greeted by row after row of the best wine, bubbly, beer, liquor, Italian meats, cheeses, olives and more.

“It was Italian food, and especially pasta, that first gave me my love for food, and it was ironically as a waitress in an Italian restaurant that I got my professional start in life. It feels like I’m coming full circle, where I now can share this love for good food and all things Italian with our customers,” says Vee.

Although much of the delicatessen at Vee & Forti is imported from Forti’s casa di Famiglia in Italy, they also stock quality local, organically grown and artisanally made foods.

“Here every sandwich is made special, not by its artsy presentation, but by being made with caring hands and fresh ingredients. And it is substantial. We are not here to tease the tongue, but to fill you with hearty food,” added Forti.

Running a restaurant sure comes with a great deal of stress and tempers may flare. Right? Well, not in these two lovebirds’ case.

“We really have very little conflict ever. We do not go to bed angry. We laugh together. We cry together. We each play to our strengths and we have common goals. At work we are colleagues, so we keep the personal side of things out of it … well most of the time. Haha. Having said that, we have constant banter, all part of our dynamic to make our customers smile.
“And we think that we are sexy. For each other of course. Which is very important, “says Forti with a naughty twinkle in his eyes.

To relax and unwind the couple love to have a cup of Earl Grey tea, cook a mean curry together, soak their muscles in the jacuzzi or support their friends in the restaurant industry. You’ll likely spot them at Geet Indian Restaurant and the Godfather, but they make it very clear, they do not have an ultimate favourite.

“We are easy to please, we just want to have a good honest meal made with good ingredients and love. Yes … love, because have you ever tasted a meal made without love?”

Any exciting plans for the year?

“We’ve done wine and olive pairings in the past that worked really great and will do it again. But yes, we always have plans … watch this space. In the meantime, we are your friendly neighbourhood liquor emporium and deli.”

Catch Forti on DEKATv every Wednesday, 7:30pm on SABC 2.

Pop in at Vee & Forti, corner of Lynnwood and Daventry Street, Lynnwood Glen or follow @VeeAndForti on Facebook and Insta.

Vee and Forti in a nutshell

Vee: Loves bubbly, their rescue dogs, useless information, textiles and embroidery.
Forti: Loves cars, technology, opera, writing and Italy of course.

Vee: Her favourite ingredients are eggs and fresh ripe tomatoes that have not seen the inside of a fridge.
Forti: He likes olive oil and cheese. As in all of them.

Vee: She likes Forti’s generosity and his caring heart.
Forti: Likes the fact that Vee knows something about everything, so he calls her chappies.com

Vee: She learned to accept that Forti interrupts her stories with his own, which are quite long.
Forti: He accepted her singing, which is apparently atrocious and funny. And that she also tells long stories and makes grammar and pronunciation mistakes to tease him.

Vee’s orange chiffon cake

You’ll need: 565ml cake flour; 15ml baking powder; 375ml sugar; 5ml salt; 125ml oil; 30ml orange zest; 5 egg yolks; 200ml fresh orange juice (plus extra if required); 250ml egg whites; 3ml cream or tartar

Ganache – 100ml cream; 100g Lindt Intense Orange Dark Chocolate

How to: Sift together the dry ingredients three times.

Mix together the oil, zest, yolks and 200ml orange juice. Add to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth, adding more orange juice, if necessary, to form a soft batter.

Whisk together the egg whites and cream of tartar, until just stiff peak.

Pour the yolk mixture over the whites, and fold until just blended. Pour into an ungreased chiffon pan.

Bake at 160°C for approximately an hour and 15 minutes, until set and cooked through. Remove from the oven, immediately turn over and leave to cool upside down.

For the ganache: Heat cream on the stovetop until just simmering. Turn off the heat and add the chocolate.

Stir until smooth. Cool and pour over the cake. Decorate with a small vase with flowers in the middle.

Forti’s Ragu’ di Pietrastornina

Serves 6

This sauce freezes fantastically so you can make it weeks before you need it and use it when you need big flavour.

You’ll need: 100ml good virgin olive oil; 4 x 400g tins of Italian peeled and chopped tomatoes; two large tablespoons tomato paste; half a bottle of good robust red wine like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chianti; 1 large onion, diced; 2 celery stalks, diced; 1 large carrot, diced; 2 cloves of crushed garlic; 300g sirloin steak cut into thick strips; 6 Italian Salsicce or good coarse pork sausages; ½ fresh chicken on the bone; cut into coarse chunks; 400g rack of lamb on the bone; handful of fresh basil

How to: In a large pot braise the diced carrots, onions, garlic and celery on a moderate heat until glossy. It is important that they not burn. Use lots of oil  (at least 100ml).

Add the sirloin, lamb and chicken in large pieces with the sausage and cook slowly turning over until lightly browned.

Add the wine slowly in drops into the pot stirring and reducing until all the alcohol has evaporated and the sauce is reaching a nice thick consistency at the base of the pot.

At this point add the tomato paste and stir in. Cook for a further five minutes stirring continuously to prevent any burning. The emphasis must be on a gentle cooking process with respect for your ingredients. Add the peeled tomato and the basil and season to taste with sea salt and black pepper. Allow to simmer slowly for two to three hours. The meat should now be dissolving into the sauce and the sauce should have thickened and browned.

Serve with Paccheri Pasta that must be prepared in lots of rapidly boiling salted water and served al dente meaning with some good bite left in the pasta. Never overcook the pasta. 100g of dry pasta per person is a good portion size.

 

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