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Adored by celebs and serving 3,500 diners-a-week, San Carlo has turned 20
It's hard to believe it now, but when San Carlo Italian restaurant first opened its doors in Manchester, it was seen as a huge risk.
When entrepreneur Carlo Distefano took over a site that no one had previously made work - even big chain Italians ASK and Zizzi had been painfully quiet in the corner site of King Street West - everyone was telling him it would be the next to fail.
But this be a decision that would swiftly pay off for Distefano and his family.
The city centre restaurant hit the ground running when it first opened at the end of 2004, especially when among the first customers through the door was a certain Sir Tom Jones.
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It would spark the San Carlo reputation as the city's celebhaunt - the place to see and be seen with an always-buzzing atmosphere.
From that point on there was a regular procession of famous faces, homegrown and from across the world.
Seemingly every A-lister visiting the city - film stars, musicos and footballers - would all be pictured heading there to enjoy some classic Italian hospitality.
The walls would later go on to be filled with photos paying tribute to many of the stars that have dined there.
Even the Manchester Evening News' first restaurant review of San Carlo featured footballer manager Graeme Souness, who just happened to be dining there when our critic was there.
It fast became Manchester's busiest restaurant, packed every night of the week, the coveted booths always the hardest seats to come by.
It still packs in 3,500 diners every week, in this, its 20th anniversary year.
Entire Manchester United and Manchester City squad nights out have taken place there, while famous visits have included Rihanna booking out the private dining room, Hulk Hogan mobbed by hundreds of fans on his way in and out, and regular visits from both Liam and Noel Gallagher (always separately of course).
Flamboyant Italian football ace Mario Balotelli ate there pretty much every day of his entire Manchester City career.
The San Carlo empire now spreads across the world as a £100m turnover business - but it is still a family-run independent enterprise, whose roots have long been in Manchester.
Carlo's son Marcello Distefano now runs the company, having started his career working the restaurant floor at the King Street West Italian.
Opening up in Manchester had long been the hope for the family, particularly as the location had a special place in Carlo's heart having previously run the hairdressers in the basement of Kendals across the road in the 1980s.
Carlo, originally from Sicily, had opened his first San Carlo in Birmingham in 1992, but opening in Manchester would prove to be the catalyst for the business.
Looking back, Marcello says: "If this had failed, everything would have gone.
"It was probably triple the rent my dad had ever paid, it was three times the size of anything he'd ever done and the investment, so it was a big, big risk for him.
"Actually lots of people had told him not to open this site they said 'if you open here you'll fail' because lots of people had failed before.
"But anyway we opened, the first six months was probably the biggest chaos I've ever seen in a restaurant, it was ridiculous, there were queues out the door.
"There were people were screaming for tables, if you booked at 9 o'clock you were lucky to be sat by 10.30pm - for anyone that remembers it, it was pure Italian chaos!"
"But we got our act together, and it became one of the biggest turnover restaurants in the country at the time.
"From then, we've gone from strength to strength.
"My father's first restaurant he opened was in Birmingham in 1992 then he went on to Bristol and Leicester, but it was this place that really transformed the whole name San Carlo.
"From here, we went on to open Liverpool, Leeds, London, and then in six weeks time we're opening in Miami, four weeks later we're opening in Morocco, next year we're in Istanbul, we're in Abu Dhabi.
"As a business which is a Mancheser-based business, our head office is at Arkwright House just round the corner from the restaurant, as a family we've grown up here, Manchester means everything to us.
"I'm proud of the team we have, we're still going after 20 years.
"If you look back to 2005, how many restaurants were there around Manchester? There weren't many.
"It's what the city has become since then is amazing, especially on the food and drink scene.
"But the fact we're still going after all these years it's great, we're constantly focussing on how we can improve, but also how much Manchester has grown.
"We still do 3,500 customers a week, if you include Christmas that's 3,750 a week - there aren't many places in Manchester doing that - even after all these years."
Looking back to San Carlo's rise as a celebhaunt back in the 2010s, it felt like not a week went by without a famous face stepping out onto the famous marble doorway, the flashbulbs of the paparazzi going off.
Some began to joke that it must be written in the contracts of footballers signing for Man United or City that they had to appear on the steps of San Carlo shortly after.
Marcello groans when I ask him about it, as he says it was never the intention for the restaurant to become known as a celebhaunt.
He says: "It just happened. If you think when we opened what restaurants were around at the time?
"I remember in the beginning that's when Sven-Goran Eriksson was here at Man City, and you had the beginning of those international owners buying football clubs.
"Sven started coming into the restaurant all the time, then suddenly a lot of agents were hanging around, there was a lot of money in the football world, and we just became the hub of where people went to eat.
"And that just snowballed over the next 20 years."
He adds: "It never was just a restaurant, it was a lifestyle, it was known as the place to be seen, even though that annoyed me, everybody was saying "oh you only look after celebrities" but hang on we're not looking after 3,500 celebrities a week, so that used to piss me off a bit!
"But it's always been this aspirational place, restaurants are now a lifestyle, not just a place to eat."
Indeed the changes in dining out habits, and the rise of social media, has meant for ever more lavish interiors at the new San Carlos that have opened in both the UK and across the world.
Liverpool's San Carlo is known for its statement artworks, while in 2023 Marcello would go on to invest £3mn in the first Alderley Edge San Carlo, taking over the site from Gino D'Acampo in the process.
The Alderley Edge outpost has fast gained its own celebrity fanbase, with the likes of Coleen and Wayne Rooney regularly spotted there, and even a visit from royalty when Prince Albert of Monaco rocked up there last year.
Manchester's San Carlo is heading for its own makeover, which was due to take place this year but has now been pushed back to the start of 2026.
Marcello says that's simply because they're struggling to find a time in the year when they're able to close for the works.
While Marcello is now in charge of the business, dad Carlo still loves to visit the restaurants every day.
Marcello smiles: "Dad always said he'll die on the restaurant floor. He loves it.
"He said to me the other week 'I've done alright haven't I? I was a barber, and now I have restaurants all around the world.
"My only sadness is because he never flies, he's never seen the international restaurants and the success they've had."
While San Carlo is now a £100 million turnover business, Marcello said it's getting tougher and tougher in the UK because of rising costs and National Insurance increases that have hit all hospitality businesses.
He says: "Because we're a larger group it's not easier, but there are ways to try and mitigate the rising costs over the next 12-18 months.
"But you get the smaller independents out there, and the hits of rises and National Insurance it's horrific for them, and literally overnight they're loss-making.
"It's really sad because one of the great things about our industry over the past 10-15 years has been the ability of these small independents opening up and bringing ideas and creativity to the industry, without that you wouldn't have got all these new restaurants. That's the disappointing thing that the Government doesn't seem to realise.
"The industry as a whole, everyone is looking towards international now because the opportunities are there.
"Because we're a family business we've got no pressure from investors, so if we want to sit back we can do. Once Miami is open we'll look to other areas in the US, we want to go to Asia, China, Singapore.
"What I like is the business confidence, people want to do deals, people want to do business."
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