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Mamma’s boy proves
his worth Review Carmela, Horsham Francesco Raciti is a familiar face around Horsham, having worked at some of East Street’s most successful Italian restaurants. But when he decided to take on the chains with his own Sicilian-inspired eatery, in a charming but fragile 16th Century building, many rated his chances of success as slim to none. Perhaps it wouldn’t be long before ‘slim’ left the building, bearing in mind that every news headline at the time was about the credit crunch, and that several restaurants had flopped soon after opening at the same site, on the corner of Denne Road, Francesco recalls: “The restaurant was a big risk. Everybody gave us six months and said I was completely mad, as I opened at the peak of the recession. When everybody was selling, I was buying.” Three and a half years on, Carmela is one of Horsham’s most successful restaurants, and people are flocking to the new Carmela delicatessen in the Carfax, part of the Raciti family’s burgeoning business empire. Carmela is named after Francesco’s Rome-born mother, who you will see running the delicatessen, whilst his sister Rossella is the general manager of the restaurant, which has a number of Sicilian dishes.
Francesco and his sister were born in Sicily, like their father, and several of the signature dishes including Carmela’s Polpette (beef meatballs in spaghetti) and the Zuppa di Pesce (seafood stew) are prepared to old family recipes. Next month, the menu will once again be amended to include a mix of fresh mix of Sicilian and Italian dishes. Now, after three years, Francesco believes his initial dream has been realised. He said: “When we opened the restaurant we didn’t have much capital, so in the first few years everything we made was invested straight in to the building, the staff and the food. “The restaurant is now about 80% of what I originally imagined. The concept is in place, so there are just a few small details with the building to be changed, as well as improving the menu with a few new interesting dishes. “The new menu is inspired by a lot of travelling. In Italy, chefs are experimenting with new dishes and ingredients, preparing traditional foods like spaghetti, cannelloni, lasagne, and pasta carbonara but with modern twists. “At Carmela, we have always kept our signature dishes as they are old family recipes. The meatballs are prepared how my grandmother used to make it. But a lot of other dishes on the menu are Italian.