Blackpool restaurant gets the cheese wheel craze rolling

The San Marcos team with the cheese wheel

San Marcos in Lytham Road, South Shore is serving its customers pasta dishes finished off in a flaming cheese wheel.

The idea comes from Italy where it is sometimes known as dalla forma cooking and gives the pasts dishes extra flavour.

Owner Lucia Frankitt said business partner business partner Bob McCormick suggested the idea. She had seen cheese wheel cooking in Italy when on holiday and then on TV later.

She said: “It just looked amazing, some real drama for the customers.

tastes fantastic too. We ordered our Gran Padana cheese wheel from Southern Italy and it took three weeks to arrive.

“The it took two and a half hours to chisel off the top.

“Then a hollow is made into which the chef pours some cognac. This is set alight to sterilise and then melt the cheese a little.

Chef Alain serving pasta from the cheese wheel

“The pasta is then put in and the chef scrapes the cheese and stirs it around to coat the pasta with the Parmesan.”

The cheese wheel weighs 35kg and Lucia said it was expensive.

Depending on the brand, they are priced online between £300 and £1,000.

San Marcos started in 2002 on Highfield Road but moved to bigger premises in the former Booths supermarket site on Lytham Road in 2008.

In January it was voted by Blackpool Gazette readers as the best Italian restaurant on the Fylde coast.

Lucia added: “The cheese wheel has been very popular already with our customers. It is something new but tastes delicious.”