Silvana Palmira and Borsato

Update:

In September, 1997, Silvana Palmira sold Borsato's and retired. A tragic loss to Melbourne eating.

In 1971 Silvana (Palmira) was looking to start a unisex boutique in Toorak Road but instead of getting the boutique she and her husband Piero Battaglia bought a take away food shop.

And so the pattern maker and designer from Molise, Italy, renowned for covering silk buttons faster than anyone else, put needlework aside and started to feed Melbourne from IT, Italian Take away. Since then she and Piero have had four restaurants and are happy now to stay at Borsato, their North Carlton restaurant where they’ve been for the past 7 years.

Silvana has always loved cooking but was discouraged by her family. She learnt to cook from her uncle and grandmother who had a very big catering service. “My uncle taught me everything but not everything that he knew because I know not even a quarter of what he used to do, he was a chef, sommelier, waiter, he was everything.”

She was 26 when she came to Melbourne and, despite being “brainwashed” by her family not to cook she found herself doing meals for friends, for the Molina family. She was close to many restaurant families, Mario Virgona and George Tsindos. They all wanted Silvana to cook for them but it was not until she came close to starting her own fashion business that she finally made the commitment to cooking. It was immediately successful and attracted many loyal customers. But after four years, Silvana got restless and went back to Italy again. On her return she and Piero started La Pergola in Grattan Street and that was bigger and even more successful. “About 100 people a day, we sat 52 and there was never an empty chair”.

Then again Silvana felt the urge to go back to Italy. These regular long visits back to Italy help to explain why her food remains the most authentic, the most truly Italian food in Melbourne. Silvana keeps insisting that she is a simple cook but it is the simplicity of one person’s attention to every detail, to buying fresh produce regularly, to cooking small amounts daily and to allowing the best ingredients to be presented freshly and superbly. On a recent visit we ate her fritto misto. She uses scallops, mussels, bugs, prawns and sometimes clams and cooks them all in the shell, sealing all the juices inside by rolling the shellfish in flour and frying them in a shallow pan with fresh oil. She also uses calamari and whatever is the best fish of the day, preferably on the bone but sometimes in fillets.

In between opening her own restaurants Silvana has also worked for some of Melbourne’s important food families, the Simeoni’s when they were at the Hollyford Hotel in Elizabeth St. and the Donnini’s in Drummond St. Then there was her Avanti Restaurant, more travelling in Italy and finally Borsato, “this is my last one”.

Silvana admits that she has always been restless but one thing has remained constant, and that is her love of food and of cooking. She has always made her own pasta, in all her restaurants. But now she has some help from her Portuguese kitchen hand, Bina (Valbina da Silva) who came to wash dishes for Silvana when Borsato first opened. One day Bina started to help her with the pasta. Now she is faster than anyone Silvana has ever seen, she can make up 14 eggs of dough into tortellini and pappardelle in just one hour.

Silvana says that her cooking has not changed over the years but she keeps on experimenting and explained to me some of the dishes on her new menu.

“A ravioli with ricotta and red radicchio dressed with fine shallots and pine nuts. Instead of ricotta and spinaci, I came up with radicchio instead. It is beautiful.

She has also changed the traditional minestrone into a daily special, a vegetable soup which is really simple and fresh. Sylvana says that she became tired of the traditional fine dice of vegetables which makes up minestrone. So instead she keeps the vegetables larger and then just fries a little bit of onion and carrot, water salt and pepper, olive oil, never butter. No bacon or ham, sometimes some boiled Borlotti beans. I’ve tried this several times at Borsato with different vegetables, and it is always very fresh and delicious, more a vegetable dish than a soup.

There are, however, many dishes which Silvana has to keep on her menu. As a result there are often at least 25 dishes (and then there are cheeses and desserts, salads and vegetables which can be ordered separately).

“Naturally I can’t take off my chicken brodo with tortellini, I’ve got some Japanese people they come for main course of this tortellini . . . the menu is big but we try to cut but I can’t. I don’t know what to do . . .you just have to be careful not to cook too much. We have a big kitchen and you have to be on the go all the time and when you have good fresh suppliers who give you things in small quantities, then it’s OK But when you get suppliers who say, not less than five kilos etc. it’s impossible.”

Silvana relies on a few very good suppliers like Spencer Wilkinson from whom she has been buying fish for 12 years and her “contadino”, originally from Abbruzzo who comes in to Melbourne from his farm at Essendon twice a week with her rocket, onions, garlic, silver beet. “And they look so bad. The other day he came in with some silver beet that was looking dreadful but it tasted and smelt terrific. And he brings me all the chicken and the carciofini. I really notice the difference when I haven’t got the chicken from the contadino to do the broth and I buy chicken from the butcher, the broth is not that clear like the one I use. He also has home-made cheese, he’s got a few goats and so brings the little cheese made by himself. It’s different and it’s good. But it’s not like years ago, there were more of those people.”

We tried the carciofini (baby artichokes, the size of your thumb) in the salad. They have a lovely crunchy quality. But these good things have their season and Silvana has problems in explaining this to some of her customers. One week before Christmas, the artichokes stopped and people who came for that wouldn’t believe it wasn’t available and complained that other restaurants have carciofini all year around. “How can you make people understand. I’m too old fashioned, you know, I can’t do it. If you do artichoke ravioli with artichokes from jars, it’s no good.”

One of the great strengths of the Italian food culture is the respect for produce and for tradition. No where is this better shown in Melbourne than at Borsato . I believe that these strengths are also found in our Chinese restaurants and it was interesting to hear from Silvana, that some of her best non Italian eating experiences have been at Melbourne’s Chinese restaurants and I will be talking next week with one of her herald_articles_1996-97, Gilbert Lau of The Flower Drum.