It’s fair to say that Italian cuisine is, objectively, one of the world’s best. We certainly won’t ever tire of it in the UK. But with such a fierce protection of traditional recipes from the Italians themselves and a catalogue of recipes that rely on simplicity and ingredients rather than innovation and experimentation, how do you bring something new to the Italian restaurant landscape? Chris Leach is one of the few who has found the answer at his restaurant Manteca – despite never working in an Italian restaurant beforehand.

Growing up in Colwyn Bay, north Wales, Chris set his sights on cooking professionally after watching the first series of The Naked Chef. ‘I got the accompanying cookbook for my thirteenth birthday and started making really bad pasta using a rolling pin and my mum’s food processor,’ he remembers. ‘It had a huge impact on me, but for whatever reason I was put off becoming a chef by what people told me. There were no good restaurants near me at the time and the career’s advice at school was basically ‘don’t become a chef’!’

Instead, Chris went to university to study illustration, but when he landed a job to make some money at a restaurant called The Lime Tree in Manchester, he knew cooking was what he needed to do. ‘There was no looking back,’ he says. ‘I completely fell in love with the kitchen environment and knew I eventually wanted my own restaurant – although at the time I had no idea what it would be like. I moved down to London to get really serious about it.’

After a stint at The OXO Tower in Southbank, Chris joined the team at Launceston Place in Kensington to get some experience in the world of fine dining (‘it was long hours and certainly not the easiest or most enjoyable job, but it gave me a great foundation in cooking’). After that, he joined the team at Pitt Cue, the trailblazing barbecue restaurant from Tom Adams (now at Coombeshead Farm in Cornwall) – and really got inspired.

‘Going from the world of fine dining to a tiny basement with two smokers, a small grill and a young but seriously energetic team was incredible,’ he says. ‘Tom was so passionate about sourcing and his focus on farming was inspiring; there was so much to learn. While the restaurant was barbecue-inspired and certainly started out serving the likes of pulled pork and ribs, it evolved into something more. We were always collaborating and learning and it’s where my love for nose-to-tail cooking really began.’

Those two years at Pitt Cue had a huge impact on the way Chris cooks today. His next move was to open Kitty Fisher’s with fellow Welshman Tomos Parry (now of Brat and Mountain fame). ‘I’d known Tomos since I was about sixteen, so it was really nice to work with him. Kitty’s was huge fun – a tiny kitchen with only three of us in there at the beginning. It was my first experience opening a restaurant and the owners were three friends with no hospitality experience, so we were all learning as we went a bit!’

After another two-year stint, Chris left Kitty Fisher’s for his first chef role at Sager and Wilde. This was his first chance to cook exactly what he wanted, develop his own style and explore what would eventually become Manteca. ‘I’d never worked at an Italian restaurant but I loved teaching myself how to make fresh pasta,’ he says. ‘I’d always known I’d wanted my own restaurant, but it wasn’t until I was at Sager and Wilde that I really knew what that would look like.’

Chris’ final gig before he set out on his own was at Petersham Nurseries, as senior sous across a huge operation comprised of two restaurants, a florist, a deli and a bakery. But by this point he had met his business partner David Carter (the restaurateur behind Smokestak, OMA and Agora) and was keen to try the concept for Manteca out as a pop-up. ‘We opened up on Heddon Street for four months with a limited menu,’ explains Chris. ‘We’d get in whole pigs and make mortadella as we didn’t have time for any longer cures, then sell it alongside fresh pasta, focaccia and pork chops. That was pretty much it, but it was really well received.’

The idea was to transplant Manteca into a permanent site as soon as the pop-up ended, but various sites fell through. A semi-permanent site was opened in November 2019, but then the world closed down during the Covid lockdowns. During these bleak, uncertain times, Chris happened upon an old Pizza Express site in Shoreditch which offered everything he wanted Manteca to be.

‘At first you think you can use the bare bones of a site and make the transformation quite easy, but of course it never works out that way,’ he says. ‘To work with whole animals you need to design everything around them. We created a whole room downstairs for butchery and salumi production, which meant moving the staircase and reorganising the entire building. It was a pretty intense time – I happened to have a three-month-old daughter while we were opening – but it was immensely enjoyable because it was my own.’

The ‘real’ Manteca finally opened at the end of 2021 to rave reviews, making it an instant success. Much like Pitt Cue being a ‘barbecue’ restaurant, Manteca is an ‘Italian’ restaurant – but it feels almost secondary. The real joy here is seeing a proper nose-to-tail ethos in action, with everything made in-house and a menu which changes depending on the produce that comes through the door. ‘Since opening, we’ve really fine-tuned the processes and operations behind the scenes which make this style of cooking really work,’ says Chris. ‘Our ragùs and sausages are always there to make use of trim and offcuts, and our salumeria downstairs ensures a constant supply of cured meats for the menu.’

Manteca is a masterclass in taking something beloved like Italian food and breathing new life into it, without upsetting tradition or relying on gimmicks to make it interesting. All you need is a firm ethos, a true love for cooking and the knack of knowing exactly what people want to eat.