Italian Food in Melbourne

Jan 98

Melbourne has heaps and heaps of bars, cafes and restaurants boasting Italian names. And, as well as all those Italian named places there are just as many of apparently non-Italian origin which have risotto and focaccia on their menus.

All of which must mean that Melbourne has great Italian food. No such luck.

Italian food doesn't exist, you see, it's a marketing myth. Recipes in Italy are identified as coming from your mother, grandmother, maybe your aunt, and the style as coming from the village, the city and maybe the province. Hence you have Milanese (of Milano where my mother comes from), Fiorentina (of Florence), Napolitana (of Naples) and Bolognese (of Bologna) - to name just a few.

You just can't put the cuisine of all these proudly distinctive and geographically very different cities into the one basket or boot. It's hard enough lumping them into regions, Lombardia, Toscana, Campania and Emilia Romagna respectively. The notion of an Italian cuisine only exists out of Italy, and in Italy, for tourists.

So to track down the real food, look not at the name, but who is at the stoves and what are they trying to do.

At Da Noi , Pietro Porcu, is cooking the dishes of his native Sardinia, an island in the Mediterranean. For him, the main thing is to make people feel they are at his home. "In Sardinia to say come da noi is like saying come to us and we'll look after you." Before arriving in Melbourne four years ago, Pietro ran a small intimate Da Noi in Amsterdam where he lived for some years after leaving Sardinia. At the Toorak Rd restaurant the downstairs room seats just 30 and there is a garden used occasionally as well as an upstairs area currently under renovation. The kitchen is tiny and the menu according to what Pietro feels like doing on the day. You can eat very well if you simply take his suggestions and for $45 will receive a good variety of antipasti, a pasta (maybe a ravioli filled with ricotta and broccoli or tortelli with zucchini, parmesan and beef in veal broth) , main (often braised meat or fish with malloreddus, the semolina based pasta imported from Sardinia) or swordfish cooked with white wine and botariga (dried mullet roe) and then a classic Sardinian dessert such as ricotta filled pastries fried and served in hot honey and orange sauce. There is also the option to order dishes individually but, like going to someone's house for dinner, it would be rude not to eat all that was offered here.

Eating at cafe a taglio, could not be more different. The Calabria born Connie and her Australian husband Adam Sanders wanted to set up a place where you could eat well, but fast. Not for them the all evening leisurely meal you will have at Da Noi, but a slice of pizza, a bowl of pasta and a lot less time and money. Pizza slices range from $3-5 and the current pasta dishes are $11-12.50 . These include spaghetti with globe artichokes and mussels, rigatoni with turnip tops and tagliatelle with peas and prawns. But one of the dishes which people keep coming back for here is spaghetti aglio e olio ( garlic and oil). This is a dish found all over Italy in slightly different ways, sometimes with chilli and parsley in various quantities depending on where you are. "A lot of Italian places have dishes with Italian names but don't taste of Italy". So Connie's aim here has been to do very few things, very simply. She finds people are too concerned about the 'new'. "In our first six months I refused to do any new pizzas, I wanted my regulars to get used to some simple tastes and not to want a whole mess of things on top of the pizzas."

For Connie, what is important in her cooking is "the heart and the [remembered] taste that makes the difference."

However chef Simon Humble at Scusa Mi does put this theory in question. With good cooking skills and a palate for the tastes of Italy he has reproduced some Sardinian dishes without ever visiting there. These and his other Italian style dishes have earned the restaurant the Insigna of Italian Restaurants, presented in June to Simon in Rome by the President of Italy.

Far from Italy in name but not in the flavour of the dishes is The Boulevard and it's a shame that you can only order from chef Valerio Nucci's a la carte menu at lunchtime. But then you might not see the golfers practising through the huge expanse of glass which encloses this new and rather sparse restaurant cum reception centre on Studley Park golf course. And you would not enjoy the colour co-ordination of the green outside with his Asparagi alla Milanese. At lunch the Milanese born chef produces many of that stylish city's great classic dishes, the evenings are for function bookings only.

Melbourne has some very fine Italian chefs from the Marche and the neighbouring Abruzzo Molise regions, notably Bill Marchetti of Marchetti's Latin and Tuscan Grill. Bill's signature dishes are Spaghetti Neri (with sauce of squid ink), Saltimbocca alla Romana and Tira Mi Su.

Cosi chef Michele Usci also hails from this area and also loves his seafood. It's difficult to single out dishes here because the menu changes very often due to the number of regulars. But a tagliatelle ragu made from minced lamb is to be watched out for as is his tagliatelle with fresh broad beans (in season) and the great classic, pasta e fagioli.

Another chef from the Marche region is Costa at L'Osteria. His skill at making doughs for pizza and focaccia attract a lot of the industry to this family run place on Nicholson Street.

At higher price and quality levels are Caffe Grossi and Cafe Di Stasio which contributors and many restaurant industry peers have recommended. Other favourites include Il Bacaro , Caffe Centrale, Becco , Caffe e Cucina and Zio's .

For information on wines made in Australia using Italian Grape varieties, read Italian Flavours. Also, see Cam Smith on the rise of the chic Italian bistro.