Sano rolls out slice of pizza action to Cork's emerging Italian quarter

Wed, 11 Oct, 2023 - 20:30

Property Editor Tommy Barker reports

FIRST it was Sliced — now, No 14 Parnell Place has gone the full circle, or the full pizza, as new operators take over a restaurant premises in a Cork city setting with an emerging Italian quarter flavour, after a €500,000 fit-out.

Sano inside: it can seat 140, and will employ up to 60

The initial soft early October opening of Sano, serving Neapolitan-style pizza, will be followed next week by a “VIP launch” aiming for an Instagram tsunami of toppings-out images from the revamped 140-seat venue, previously Sliced, which also served pizza among a broader food offer during its time here.

Behind the fresh pizza venture are twin brothers, Raymond and Tony
MacHugh, with 30 years’ experience in the food business and who set up Sano pizzas in Dublin in 2018: They now have two Dublin pizza restaurants, one in Temple Bar, another in Ranelagh and one in Finnieston, Glasgow.

Now, Cork’s Parnell Place is hot on their heels, after a €70,000 pa lease deal was agreed via Lisney on the premises at the top of Oliver Plunkett Street, between Cork City Hall and the bus station, and between the business district of South Mall and the emerging new central business district on the Lee’s north and south quays.

It adjoins University College Cork’s CUBS and IMI Centre of Executive Education at 16 Parnell Place/1 Lapp’s Quay — the old Permanent TSB/Cork Savings Bank branch — while it’s understood that new tenants are being sought for the former AIB bank branch facing at the other corner of Parnell Place/97 South Mall after Eventbrite vacated the historic limestone building at the start of covid.

No 14 Parnell Place was vacated post-covid by local Cork company, Sliced, which had opened there in 2017 with an outlet already in Ballincollig, taking over a former Chinese restaurant, Panda Mama, in a 19th-century, low-slung three-storey brick-faced building that previously traded for decades as a paint shop, and before that as Southern Engineering.

At No 14, Sliced’s brick oven is being replaced with two Valoriani Italian ovens, firing 90-second, 48-hour proved sourdough pizzas at 450C, and the new venture will employ up to 60 staff.

Weran Taher, chef & owner, cooking in Bocelli Kitchen & Wine Bar, Maylor St., Cork.

Also with an Italian flavour nearby is Milano on Oliver Plunkett Street, and the recently opened Bocelli on Maylor Street, while the Maldron Hotel on South Mall has its own yet-to-be completed ‘Italian Kitchen’ restaurant option facing Sano on Parnell Place, next to the Poor Relation grocery and bar.

Nearby, a further 165-bed hotel has long been mooted by the Tetrarch Group for Parnell Place/Clontarf Street, by the city’s bus station, as well as the 15-storey, €20m Prism office development planned by US-based Kerry developers Tower Group, with foundation work completed (see separate story p15).

Sano’s new lease on No 14 Parnell Place was handled by Margaret Kelleher and Johnny McKenna of Lisney, who note that “there was strong interest in this premises, and we received a number of proposals from both established operators and start-ups”.

Lisney also did the lease on UCC’s Glucksman Gallery cafe and again, here, they concluded by inviting written proposals, ending with Sano as the preferred operator and they achieved the quoted rent of €70,000 pa.

The c €500,000 fit-out to the former Sliced venue was done by Cork firm Opus Construction & Developments, with consultancy from DL Group Consulting Engineers.