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Pop-up cafe in CBD signals countdown to new Italian restaurant with metre-long pizzas
July 11, 2022
By Peter Holmes
A pop-up café offering coffee and pastries opened on Monday morning to promote the arrival into Orange of Pellegrini’s Italian.
Pellegrini’s is being built on a site of about 200 square metres at the front of the Summer Centre where Choox and Sugar Mill used to be. Staff said they were hopeful of opening later in July or in early August.
Tradespeople have been at the site for months building the new restaurant. Orange City Council has approved a $500,000 development application for a fit out at the site.
The pop-up café is positioned inside the Summer Centre opposite the IGA and will operate until Pellegrini’s launches.
The temporary spot allowed staff to chat to locals about what Pellegrini’s will have to offer and when it will be opening.
A sous chef was also on hand to check out the new restaurant.
The Orange News Examiner revealed earlier this year that Pellegrini’s - which operates seven-day-a-week restaurants in the Sydney suburbs of Kirrawee and Chatswood - was planning to launch a regional restaurant in Orange.
The menu will be similar to its sister restaurants, but will have a focus on local wines.
General manager for Pellegrini's operations Giovanni Convertino told us at the time that connections to the restaurant had already made about 10 trips to Orange to check on the site and meet with local wineries, breweries and coffee roasters, including Philip Shaw, Pioneer and Bills Beans.
He said the team would be led by an Italian head chef from Sydney, but that other chefs, wait staff and runners would be employed locally.
A locally-based manager has already been appointed.
"We want to support local," Convertino said.
The menu in Orange will be slightly less extensive than the Sydney menus, with a focus on pasta - some of which will be made in the kitchen in Orange - and wood-fired pizza.
"That is our strength," said Convertino.
A metre-long pizza will be one of the attractions.
Convertino said all the pizza dough was stretched by hand, and that the pizza sauces were all made fresh.
There will be some fresh seafood, including calamari and mussels.
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Meanwhile, the transformation of McCarthy’s Pharmacy into Life Pharmacy Orange is well underway.
The chemist is not only changing its name but is moving to the Summer Centre. The Orange News Examiner revealed in January that the current McCarthy’s site on Lords Place was becoming available for rent, at $150,000 a year.
Our photo shows how the new shop was looking on Monday morning.
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