The Old Kennels, Cirencester Park
Pizzeria Cattivo opened 12 months ago at The Old Kennels, to join the burgeoning foodie hub on the edge of Cirencester Park.
Cattivo (‘Bad Boys’ in Italian) embrace classic Neapolitan pizza-making processes to create simple, high quality pizza bases garnished with incredible ingredients that champion seasonality and provenance.
Cattivo is the brainchild of old school friends, Toby Baggott and Sam Lawson-King, who together own and run Roots + Seeds Kitchen Garden at the Old Kennels, in collaboration with one of the UK’s most highly respected chefs and restauranteurs, Mike Robinson. A champion of sustainable wild food and game for over 20 years, Mike has helped create and run some of the country’s most iconic restaurants, including the Harwood Arms in Fulham, London, which has retained its Michelin Star for over 14 years, and remains the only pub in London to do so. Mike also oversees The Woodsman in Stratford-upon-Avon and The Elder in Bath and part-owns Deer Box, which manages, harvests, processes and sells mail order wild venison to the public and top restaurants around the UK.
Mike works closely with Sam and Toby to nurture and develop Cattivo, not least because, like them, he is passionate about local provenance. Mike has been working and updating recipe development for the Cattivo pizza menus with a strong focus on simplicity, seasonality and flavour.
Cattivo’s hand-made pizza dough features a 24-hour slow fermented Biga (Italian preferment or yeast starter) for its bases. The Biga preferment method ensures a slower fermentation, firmer texture and delicious nutty flavour. All pizzas are cooked in Cattivo’s newly built Gozney wood-fired pizza oven heated to 450°C using dry-aged oak sourced from the neighbouring Bathurst estate.
The menu offers just seven classic 12” Neapolitan-style, sourdough pizzas garnished with the best locally sourced, foraged and home-grown produce. Ingredients include honey from Mike’s own hives and his home-made venison Nduja, using deer raised on the neighbouring Bathurst estate. Other locally sourced ingredients include Glastonbury Fior di Latte Mozzarella, foraged herbs and freshly picked produce from Roots + Seeds’ own ¼ acre on-site kitchen garden. https://cattivopizza.co.uk
Cattivo also uses top quality Italian ingredients such as Mutti Passata, Burrata, aged Parmesan cheeses, Single Estate Extra Virgin olive oil and San Marzona tomatoes for its home-made pizza sauce.
Drinks include two pre-made and bottled cocktails made in-house by drinks supremo Sam Lawson-King, including a Spicy Margherita and an Old Fashioned, a small but carefully curated wine list, consisting of independent Italian wines served by the glass and the bottle, along with locally produced beers, ales, and soft drinks.
This is the first time Mike has collaborated on such a simple dining venture and in his hometown of Cirencester! Mike, Sam, and Toby intend to make everything at Cattivo very much produce-led.
In keeping with Roots +Seeds sustainability ethos, all pizzas are served in cardboard boxes, and all plates, cutlery, serviettes, bottles, drinking straws and paper menus are also recyclable.
All Cattivo Pizzas cost from £14 – £17 with all orders taken at the counter.
“We are incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved in the two and a half years since opening our restaurant and kitchen garden and are incredibly excited about our collaboration with Mike Robinson for the next step in our hospitality journey. We love welcoming locals and those from further afield to Cattivo,“ says Toby Baggott.
Toby and Sam started out with the launch of the Scenic Supper, offering socially distanced fine dining in five greenhouses in a Cotswolds field following the first covid lockdown five years ago. They opened Roots + Seeds at Easter 2023, which retains their focus on farm-to-fork dining, but is also about building relationships with the wider community and providing a fun, welcoming, family-focused environment, whilst celebrating the fantastic fresh produce grown in their on-site, 1/4 acre kitchen garden and from their amazing suppliers from within a 25-mile radius.
Cattivo occupies a new, beautifully designed, light-filled space (40 covers inside and additional tables available on its terrace outside) with vaulted ceilings, industrial fixtures, long trestle tables and bench seating and flooded with natural light from floor-to-ceiling windows.
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