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FUD

It may seem absurd to tell the story of Sicilian gastronomic culture through typical American fast food favorites, but that is just part of the culinary richness of this island. This is the concept at FUD: Bottega Sicula, a restaurant that offers the likes of hamburgers, hot dogs, burritos, and fries, all with a distinctive Sicilian touch. From the local ingredients to the clever marketing, everything at FUD is a game of names and flavors.

Andrea Graziano

The idea was born in 2012, the brainchild of 47-year-old restaurateur Andrea Graziano. Andrea, originally from Catania, shares that he has always had a passion for cooking: after graduating, he worked for two years in England as a chef, a fate common to many Sicilians. At the age of 20, he returned to Catania to work for Euronics, a household appliances chain store, where he sold televisions, but he had only one goal in mind: to start his own restaurant. In 2002, Andrea opened Il Sale Art Cafe inside an art gallery, which quickly became one of the most popular spots in the city. Ten years later, when the premises of a nearby pizzeria became vacant, Andrea decided to create another space for his customers, a place where they could enjoy a cocktail and a snack before dinner.

“I put together the research work of ten years to [combine] the best products from about sixty Sicilian producers to put together a sandwich, but not the usual sandwiches that had been seen,” explains Andrea.

FUD

When he opened the first FUD, the burger shop craze had not yet exploded in Italy: a few places had opened in Milan and Rome, but not here in Sicily. Andrea worked on a new restaurant concept with the help of an architect: industrial finishes, visible shelves, products on display. It took only a few days after opening for FUD to become a novelty on everyone’s lips.

This is thanks not only to the restaurant’s tasty burgers, but also to the genius touch that is naming: everything in FUD is a misspelling of the English names for products and dishes, Italianized as you would read them. Starting with the brand name FUD, an Italianization of “food.”

burger

On the menu, hamburger thus becomes “am burgher,” cheeseburger “cis burger,” hot dog is “oddog,” “chicken wings” are spelled “cicchen uings,” and so on.

Andrea explains, “It would be cool to say that we did a study with a big agency, but the idea – like all the best successes – came from a mistake. We were a team, we were working hours and hours on this project, and as it often happens you are up late…writing the menu we made a mistake, coming up with wrong names like ‘otdog’ and ‘amburger.’ From here we changed the name [of the restaurant itself], and decided to call it ‘FUD.’”

FUD

FUD has an in-house marketing department that is responsible for telling the story of the products and the philosophy of the brand, working with external partners but still managing communication itself. “We put in a lot of love, a lot of research. We show that there is a different Sicily that defies stereotypes.”

Ninety percent of the ingredients used at FUD come from small local producers. Instead of cheddar, the burgers sport provola delle Madonie, a raw milk cheese supplied by a Sicilian company that oversees every step of production, from feeding the animals to turning the milk into cheese. Instead of bacon, black pig guanciale – fatty, salt-cured cheek meat – is used. Bread is made in-house in a stone oven or sourced from a trusted local bakery, whose recipe substitutes butter and yogurt for lard.

Homemade bread

Over the past 12 years FUD has grown considerably; following its flagship location in Catania, the company expanded with locations in Palermo and Milan, and also added pizza to the menu. In Palermo, in addition to the Piazza Olivella location, a seasonal popup called Fud Bocs (“Box”) had been opened inside a shipping container on the water at Molo Sant’Erasmo. It’s now become a permanent location, serving a fish-based FUD menu.

FUD

As a fixture in the community, FUD’s mission has also expanded to support local causes. When a fire destroyed a city park, the company supported its reconstruction. One Christmas, when sky-high air and train ticket prices threatened to keep Sicilian students living in Milan from returning home for the holidays, FUD provided a bus to bring 54 students back to Sicily. In 2018, a landslide in Castelnuovo di Sicilia, a town southeast of Palermo, isolated the only company producing Tuma Persa – an excellent traditional cheese – threatening to cause its closure. Andrea launched a campaign, posting a photo of himself with a sign that read “Save Tuma Persa.” In less than two days, more than ten thousand people, including television and radio personalities, joined the initiative, making the campaign go viral and prompting local authorities to allocate a grant of 1.7 million euros to rebuild the road.

Bec Burger

Our go-to order is a “Bec Burgher,” one of the house bestsellers: a Sicilian beef patty, salad, sweet-and-sour red onion, tomato, Madonie provolone cheese, crispy black pork guanciale, “Barbechiù Saus” and “Maio FUD” on soft seeded bread. We accompany with “Fud Stix,” crispy fries; and a FUD Cola, a soda made especially for the chain by Tomarchio, a historic Sicilian soda brand.

The sandwich is delicious: each element is well balanced and you can feel the quality of the ingredients. Andrea smiles with satisfaction – the smile of someone who has succeeded in conveying the story he dreamed of telling.

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Francesco CiprianoFrancesco Cipriano

Published on October 18, 2024

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