If I was a real businessperson I wouldn’t have done it – it’s too complicated,” says Candice Fonseca. She’s being modest: her two delis in Liverpool, including our award-winner Delifonseca Dockside, are both hugely successful. But she does have a point. Liverpool, she acknowledges, “has never been a food place”, and when she opened her first deli in 2006, her plan was straightfoward – “me stood behind the counter selling cheese” – but she had no idea if there’d be a demand for it.
She quickly found her niche. The Dockside branch, which opened four years later in an “odd location” – a former Harry Ramsden’s on a roundabout, south of the city centre – was much bigger, with room for a butcher’s and restaurant. “I ended up creating a bit of a monster,” she laughs.
Despite Liverpool’s supposed lack of interest in food, the city has changed dramatically in the past eight years and Fonseca says her customers are adventurous, hence the shelves of sumac, “00” Italian flour and free-range Goosnargh chicken legs with truffle stuffing.
“I feel proud that we’ve done this in Liverpool,” says Fonseca. “Not only have we managed to open a food business, we’re a really good one.”
