MELBOURNE - Dynasties of restaurateurs have emerged in Australia, particularly in Victoria, since the second half of the 19th century.
Many were small Italian entrepreneurs with big ideas and a desire to reinvigorate and enliven the cuisine of their origins.
Today we can credit the immense popularity of the Bel Paese’s cuisine mainly to the hundreds of thousands of post-World War II migrants. However, the history of Italian dining Down Under goes back far longer than we can imagine.
Well before the birth of Melbourne’s famous eateries of the 1920s and 1930s such as Café Florentino, The Society and The Latin, collectively dubbed as the “spaghetti mafia”, some 4000 Italians came to Australia to pursue wealth and fortune during the 1850s gold rush.
Although they struggled to establish themselves within the larger community, many courageously persevered with an entrepreneurial spirit into the first decades of the new century.
Some channelled that same energy into a purely culinary space, founding bakeries and restaurants. Humble establishments opened to serve their fellow countrymen and as a means of earning a decent living.
Macaroni Factory, located in Hepburn Springs, is the first and oldest pasta factory in Australia, founded by political exiles Pietro and Giacomo Lucini in 1858.
The two brothers, part of Giovine Italia founded by Giuseppe Mazzini, left Piedmont after an initial failed attempt to unify the Peninsula.
Forced into exile, they found themselves in the faraway land of Australia where they prospered by making and selling pasta and salami, while also founding the Hepburn Democratic Club to discuss politics and raise funds for the widows and orphans of patriots who died in Italy. Today, beautiful vineyards as well as pear, apple, fig and olive trees can still be seen outside.
By the end of the 19th century, Italian restaurants slowly began to spring up in many other cities of Australia, such as Perth, Sydney, Bundaberg and Kalgoorlie. In Melbourne, however, the popularity of Fasoli’s exploded, making it the first restaurant to gain lasting fame. The sprawling eatery on Lonsdale Street, originally established in 1850 as a boarding house, was taken over by Vincenzo Fasoli, a native of Nobiallo on Lake Como, and quickly transformed into a hangout for the bohemian community in Victorias capital.
An article from the time in the Melbourne Punch magazine describes the restaurant:
The food is predominantly Italian. It starts with appetizers - salami, lentils, green beans, sardines, beets and potato salads. Then comes a plate of well-prepared macaroni, risotto or soup. Le plat du jour consists of roast beef, pork, chicken, with stuffed cabbage and other specially prepared vegetables; for dessert there is fruit and pudding for the philistines, but the chosen ones prefer the excellent cheese and celery, or watercress salads. There is wine galore, red and white, and with cheese, a delicious cup of black coffee.
Formidable Italian chefs arrived in Melbourne at the beginning of the last century, making their mark and showing Australians the pleasures of Italian-style dining: food and wine accompanied by music and the art of conversation. Bourke, Lonsdale and Exhibition Street suddenly came alive with extraordinary restaurants like Cafe d’Italia, which later became The Latin under Bill Marchetti, The Italian Society under the Codognotto brothers and Café Florentino under Rinaldo Massoni.
They were the promoters of a new way of life capable of attracting politicians, artists and actors to the heart of Melbourne as well as the thousands of students who would later become powerful members of society.
“Almost noble figures, brilliant entrepreneurs,” is how award-winning chef Stefano de Pieri describes them. “I still have such a vivid memory of Bill Marchetti’s wonderful The Latin, a restaurateur with a truly avant-garde vision.”
But for de Pieri, credit for a decisive change in the local culinary scene can also be given to a small restaurant in South Yarra; Maurice Terzini’s Caffé e Cucina, “which was able to create an environment in which Italian-ness was fully exalted. From uniforms with gold buttons to lighter and faster cooking, to the habit of having coffee at the bar with breakfast.”
Inspired by that atmosphere of renewal, in the early 1990s, Stefano de Pieri decided to start his own “oasis” in Mildura, regional Victoria, with Stefano’s restaurant. The television adaptation of his book A Gondola on the Murray - which intersects his memories of his farmhouse in Veneto along the Sile River and his new life along the Australian river - has brought national recognition for him and a further step in the exploration of Italian cuisine.
“When I arrived in Victoria, pizza and noodles galore reigned on Lygon Street, and there was no mention whatsoever of the quality of the products used, such as olive oil, for example,” he said.
“It was me and chef Maggie Beer, in particular, who encouraged a change.
“Even garlic has always been of Chinese origin and of very poor quality. It was chemist Nick Diamantopoulos, a good friend of mine, who produced Australian garlic which we now distribute in all the supermarkets in the state.”
For the celebrity chef, something is still missing in the sea of experimentation, new dishes and continuous culinary influences; “a true affirmation of poor Italian cuisine”.
“I have tried, but it’s difficult because it is very intensive. You make bread at home and then a soup with what is left over. To make an Australian understand that he is eating a bread soup with perfect olive oil, and maybe a handful of cheese, is very complicated because you still fall into clichés.”
