Spaccio (22 Sackville, at King East) is a new 16,000-square-foot commissary, cafe and store from the people behind Terroni.
Spaccio (short, in this case, for Terroni and Sud Forno Produzione e Spaccio) is an Italian term for a tuck shop or a general store. A press release notes that Spaccio is also an informal term for drug-dealing – a fittingly subversive choice by Terroni founder Cosimo Mammoliti, who named his first restaurant after a salty epithet for Southern Italians.
Spaccio marks a major move for Mammoliti and for the rest of the Terroni family. The space was created to take the restaurant chain’s focus on exhaustive sourcing and solid ingredients one step further by standardizing production.
“The idea was to make everything we produce for the restaurants under one roof,” says Mammoliti.
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For years, items like fresh pastas, pizza dough, breads, sauces and sweets were handled by different restaurants for example, while Terroni Adelaide made the pasta in their basement, Queen West made gelato and Sud Forno on Temperance handled the bread.
Now, those staples will all be produced at Spaccio, with deliveries going out to restaurants twice daily. Additionally, the extra elbow room will give the chain space to experiment with new products. (For example, Mammoliti says that for years they’ve been hoping to start making their own tortellini.)
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“I’ve been trying to put (a commissary) together for five years – we just couldn’t find the right place,” Mammoliti says. “We would find warehouses in Etobicoke, but it just wasn’t something I wanted to do.”
The wide-open, beam-free space (previously a manufacturing facility) allowed the Terroni team to arrange the kitchen however they wanted. The space is now home to six distinct areas: bakery, pastry, “savoury,” catering, butchery and a gelateria.
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In addition, a cafe stretching across the front of the facility includes a coffee counter, a case of fresh pasta and baked goods and shelves of Terroni’s house-branded pantry items (like peperoncini and tomatoes).
Mammoliti said that the cafe portion was a bit of an add-on to the commissary space, but he warmed to the idea of giving Corktown’s locals somewhere to go for a low-key bite to eat.
“I felt like it was like Queen Street was when I opened in 1992. I wanted to make it really casual,” he says.
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To that end, he hopes to offer deals like $10 for a pizza slice and a beer or $20 for pasta and a glass of wine.
“We’re starting off with a few things and seeing how the neighbourhood reacts,” he says. “We hope that people come – but if not, we still need the space for us.”
Here’s a closer look at the space and menu:
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Here’s the pasta station, where hand-shaped pastas like orecchiette are made daily.
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Mammoliti’s first pasta machine – the one he used when he first opened Terroni – now has a permanent home at Spaccio, along with some new “dream machines” they use for stuffed pastas.
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These ovens crank out pizzas, bread and biscotti, as well as panettone during the holidays.
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Mammoliti shows off one of the facility’s four proofers.
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Tossing fresh gnocchi.
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A big smile from the bakery area.
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Pastry chefs roll out dough to make bomboloni.
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Up front, you can shop and sip an espresso from the coffee counter.
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The prepared food case offers baked goods and pastries in the morning, plus pizza slices and salads at lunch.
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All kinds of fresh pasta shapes are on offer in the pasta case:
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Treats from the bakery case:
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Cheeses, meats and sauces are available in the fridge:
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An upstairs seating area doubles as a space for pasta-making classes.
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It’s also a great place to watch the action in the kitchen below:
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Spaccio opens to the public Monday, March 2.
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