Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) It’s good to venture out of Brussels to find good places to visit and eat and one such place is Waterloo.
This pleasant Brabant Walloon town has always been a traditional “home” to Eurocrats. Lots of people working in the EU institutions and international organisations such as NATO live here.
For many, one local restaurant has become their favourite place to dine.
It’s called “Anima Italiana” and, aside from some truly authentic Italian cuisine, it and its owners have a fascinating story of their own to tell.
Silvana Cappello, and her husband Lillo, have zero background in the resto trade. She was (and remains) a management consultant while Lillo was a graphic designer (he helped produce one of the definitive and best-ever guides to Brussels’ Grand Place) and his own company.
But, after years “staring at a screen” Lillo decided he’d had enough and wanted a change. That’s where the duo’s shared love of and passion for cooking (and food) came in with a brave decision to “take the plunge” and launch their very own restaurant. This was even though both were approaching the end of their careers.
The only bad news is that this all came at what most regard as the worst health pandemic ever which resulted in one resto after another closing.
“We asked ourselves,” reflects Silvana, “whether it was the biggest mistake of our lives.”
No matter, they threw themselves into exciting new projects, which involved totally transforming what is now a very pleasant eatery. Having formerly been a florist, the question was: would the new business prove a “blooming success?”
Well, despite it being launched just as the coronavirus crisis took hold in 2020, the answer was, yes, it was a resounding success from the off, albeit, initially, as a takeaway service due to restrictions at the time.
It first opened to the public to eat in one year ago, so the first anniversary is a good opportunity for the couple to look back of what they and their hard-working team have achieved in a very short space of time.
“Yes, it was a risk,” says Silvana, “but we are glad we took that risk.”
The restaurant serves genuinely authentic Italian food, much of it Sicilian, with many of the ingredients and products, including the cheeses, used in the kitchen directly (and at no little expense) sourced from Sicily which just happens to be where both Belgian-born Silvana and Lillo’s families are originally from. The excellent wines are similarly sourced from local producers in Italy.
Look out too for the very distinctive Neapolitan pizzas (also known as Naples-style pizzas) which are different to regular pizzas, not least as the surrounding crust (“cornicione”) is higher and thicker. They are cooked here for just 60 seconds each in a wood-powered oven at some 450 degrees.
An increasing number of Italian restos and pizzerias use electricity or gas to cook pizzas so it makes for a refreshing change to find a place using the rather more traditional wood oven for pizzas (and bread). The result, simply, is simply rather more tasty pizzas.
There’s also some equally delicious pasta dishes on the relatively short but splendid menu, including a couple of customer favourites: “Pappardelle con salsa nera tartufata” and “spaghetti alla carbonara”, cooked the “Rome way”, not with cream but with eggs and guanciale, an Italian cured meat.
Considering the top notch quality the prices here are remarkably reasonable.
The resto, easily accessible from Brussels, is divided into three areas, the “Roma Room” featuring a huge photo of a real back street in the Italian capital; the “Napoli Room”, with an equally impressive and large photo, from 1939, of some young women enjoying what looks like tasty pasta (that seems entirely appropriate) and, finally, a small “Sicilian Room”, usually reserved for private functions, where Silvana and Lillo have tried (successfully) to recreate the look of a typical street in Sicily.
Everything adds to the real authenticity of this place which, like the owners, oozes Italian charm. Credit also to their daughter Letizia, 25, who also helps to look after this family business (and is equally passionate about food).
The innovative owners have big plans for the near future too: special evenings where the multi-national staff, many of them talented musicians and artists, will perform for diners. From the end of November or so there’ll also be “themed” evenings which will showcase food and products from Italian regions such as Tuscany, Puglia and, of course, Sicily.
Lillo, when explaining a dish, likes to add a little comment at the end which, in a way, neatly sums up this lovely eatery: there is a “hidden ingredient” he tells you – “lots of love.”
Further info : Anima Italiana, Chau. de Bruxelles 382, Waterloo
02 770 68 17/www.animaitaliana.be
