Cantine Dell’Angelo: The exclusive Nottingham nightspot that's hidden beneath our feet

Legend has it that you used to be able to take a subterranean walk from one side of Nottingham to the other and never see the light of day.

That may have been true one day. Nottingham was and still is a city of caves. 

Over hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, the soft sandstone on which the city was founded has provided ample space for dwelling, for the storage of food and drink, for worship, for brewing, and to imprison the villains of history.

But as buildings changed over time and, crucially, became heavier, many of the caves and tunnels dug out of the sandstone simply collapsed under the extra burden. 

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Many were lost forever under the rubble. One of those sat dank, disused and unheard of, possibly for centuries, right under our feet, just off the Old Market Square. 

That is until in 2017, when Angelo Trivigno, manager of the Flying Horse Arcade and owner of swish Italian restaurant Bar Gigi on the first floor, set about on a project of works to fix a rising damp problem.

Digging deeper into the problem exposed something astonishing: a 14th century man-made cave with a stone wall entrance house, one of the oldest existing walls in the city.

The wonder of it certainly wasn’t lost on Trivigno, who is a passionate history buff. When he moved to Nottingham from Italy in 1982 Trivigno brought with him a childhood intrigue for history and ancient sites. 

Little did he know that for years he’d had a remarkable and secret piece of history right under his feet.

His first connection with the Flying Horse Arcade came when he and his daughter established a clothes shop there some eight years ago, GiGi Bottega. As the business took off it needed more space, prompting the family to take over another, larger unit, next door.

Somewhere along the line, investigations into a common problem for businesses led to an extremely uncommon find.

“The cellars came as an accident,” he said. “I went in to investigate some damp. I didn’t even know about the cellars. All the puzzles came together then.”

Clearing the cellars has been a major work of years, and counting. So far 750 tonnes of rubble has been cleared from beneath the earth. 

To add to the challenge, and the mystery, the team was working blind. So much time has elapsed since the ancient caves were last used that no records of their former use remain. 

When the project started they had no idea whether the system of caves and tunnels would yield effective ‘ends’ to serve as an entrance and exit, which was crucial for safety reasons if Trivigno was ever planning to use the space.

It’s been such a fruitful archaeological project that it’s attracted the interest of Historic England, through the organisation’s tie-up with the Nottingham Caves Survey. Thanks to the major discovery beneath the Flying Horse, the survey team has taken a big step forward in its quest to chart every cave beneath Nottingham.

The Angel Cellars

And now, having made this mysterious, accidental find beneath his feet, Trivigno has set about creating a truly unique space right in the city centre. The result: Cantine Dell’Angelo, meaning ‘Angel Cellars’.

While diners upstairs enjoy their Italian delicacies and cocktails in Bar Gigi, they may be unaware that select groups of epicures are being treated in something of an Aladdin’s cave for wine and food lovers several floors down.

Trivigno takes group and corporate bookings on a select basis, with their specialist tastes in mind. Wine tasting sessions last two hours or more, and include a tour of the cellars. But bear in mind these aren’t your everyday wines: if you’re prepared to splash out, they stock a range of wines that start at £500 a bottle.

“Most of our customers take advantage of the wine tasting downstairs and then upstairs they’ll carry on with a beautiful meal,” says Trivigno.