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Video: Sanlorenzo Mercato in Palermo: for now a missed opportunity
2024 Author: Cody Thornton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 12:26
We have called them 2.0 markets where to eat and shop. Those who think of these courts of taste return well-restored disused structures to the cities that broaden the offer by restoring the centrality of shopkeepers, artisans and street food sellers.
Here, Sanlorenzo Mercato>, open on 17 March a Palermo at 288 in via San Lorenzo, in the premises of an ancient citrus fruit from the 1940s, restored by the architect Chiara Mazzarella renewing the original structure with inserts of modern design, is precisely one of these markets.
The name and the billboards can be deceiving but we are not talking about a traditional Sicilian market. It has nothing of the Palermitan Ballarò or the "Fera o luni" of Catania.
There is no chaos, there is no frenzy, no one screams. Here everything is neat and clean, other than shacks at the limit of Asl tolerance. You eat healthy, kilometer zero is a religion, everything is built for pleasure.
Advertised and trumpeted in every corner of Palermo as if it were the remedy for all ills, the satisfaction of every need, it promises to be not a super market, but a super market.
Since we too know how to resist everything except temptations, we went to see if Sanlorenzo il Mercato lives up to expectations.
The renovation has made the ancient citrus grove a contemporary space with the inevitable retro touches. Apart from the structure, the Sicilian setting is entrusted to vintage furniture, to the accessories that dot the market, even to the oranges scattered almost everywhere.
Let's now see, one by one, the individual spaces.
SAN LORENZO CAFFE '
The space that welcomes visitors is the San Lorenzo café. The atmosphere is pleasant, suitable for having a quiet chat with friends.
The identikit of the typical visitor can be sensed by eavesdropping on the conversation at the table adjacent to ours: "I changed my way of eating, I no longer buy refined flours or sugar". “The problem is that you don't have to go to supermarkets right there”.
A little intimidated, let's take a look at the sweets section. In the window, the small fresh pasta from Palermo, the inevitable chocolate from Modica, the PanPassito from the Giulio pastry shop, and little else.
Perhaps the market is running in, yet the press releases trumpeted the two years spent selecting excellent products: we expected more and better.
BUYING AT THE MARKET: THE WORKSHOPS
The market includes the oven, fishmonger, meat shop and delicatessen in adjacent areas. These are the shops of the San Lorenzo market. A forced path in the infamous Ikea style with the counters placed on one side and a few tables where you can sit down to try the kitchens in operation between the shops.
Basically we are in a gourmet shopping center made up of shops and island products.
The idea draws a little here and a little there, creating a strong sense of already seen that leads us to ask ourselves a few questions:
We are in a market that exhibits little merchandise, focused on the beauty of the place rather than on the richness of the offer.
Shops without a shopkeeper, a fundamental figure for a market that, as such, must prefer the relationship with the customer, while the feeling of non-place takes over here at Sanlorenzo.
Too similar to the frequent shopping centers that wink at the specialties of the area.
Involved and convinced by so much publicity, visitors to the market are seized by the desire to buy something.
The desire to browse, discover and buy generated by so much advertising remains mostly unsatisfied. Visitors wander around the shops with an empty cart in search of the only product that will make their day less in vain.
The looks in the eyes of the good ladies of Palermo betray disappointment and a thread of resignation.
In the absence of anything better, the conversation turns to the chef who has changed in that place, two hundred kilometers away. And on the need to organize a trip to try the tasting menu.
EAT AT THE MARKET: FRYER
What is the point of locking up the acclaimed Palermo street food in a paved and clean space, with shining windows, certainly loved by the diehards of Amuchina?
You can't see the oil frying, you can't hear the street noises, you can't find the hit and run sandwich, no pats on the backs of the sellers or smoke from the engines.
Even the panelle, which are acceptable in consistency, are not up to par with the best Palermitan fry shops.
The only background that can be perceived while biting into a sandwich is the orderly buzz of the participants in the meeting on Ribera's oranges. There is talk of "metabolites" and "range": the nostalgia of the "rascatura" of the mobile panellari is triggered automatically.
TAVERN
At 12:30 the Osteria Sanlorenzo opens. As in the rest of the market the references to Sicily are of an aesthetic rather than gastronomic order, in this case with a pleasant exhibition of Sicilian artists.
The tavern, decorated in light colors, is very bright. Friendly if inattentive service.
The menu features the classics of Sicilian cuisine, although we would have liked more precise information on products and provenance.
The San Lorenzo appetizer, served too cold, consists of half a stuffed artichoke, an aubergine roll, the classic caponata, an omelette and finally a stuffed champignon mushroom.
Pasta with sardines lacks breadcrumbs, to be requested separately. Among the desserts a catchphrase of Sicilian kitchens with some pretensions: the decomposed cannoli. A real persecution.
As we leave Sanlorenzo the Market which is becoming populated with customers we cannot help but notice the small vegetable garden.
What will it be used for, or rather who? Probably to children, who will see the garden inside the covered market where there are products but not producers, shops but not shopkeepers.
Where gastronomy, paradoxically, is removed from the road and the countryside. From its own origins.
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