Internationally acclaimed cook Antonio Carluccio graced the iconic Lygon Street dining strip with his presence, helping kick off the festival’s 25th year with the Bank of Melbourne World’s Longest Lunch.
With the help of Peter Rowland Catering, Mr Carluccio served a lip-smacking autumn feast inspired by his latest cookbook Vegetables to 1772 diners at a table spanning a record 600 metres.
The mammoth menu featured 122.5 metres of pizza to start, 525 kilograms of veal ossobuco for the main, 2000 stuffed heirloom tomatoes for the side, and 6000 Middle Eastern figs for the decadent dessert.
Over 70 back of house staff and over 180 front of house staff worked tirelessly to bring the culinary ingenuity of one man to the palates of Melburnians.
Considered the "Godfather of Italian Cooking", Mr Carluccio has established himself as a much loved and respected writer, restaurateur and food expert across the globe, having also been appointed Commendatore by the Italian government and received and OBE from the Queen for his services to the catering industry.
There is one thing that the UK-based foodie stresses he is not.
“I am not a chef, I am a cook,” he said.
“A chef cooks as a profession; I cook only when I want to and out of passion.”
Mr Carluccio’s relationship with food dates back to his humble origins in Piedmont.
At seven years of age, the cooking icon’s lifelong passion for foraging mushrooms was sparked, as he wandered the northern Italian countryside in search of the perfect pick with his father, who was a station master.
It wasn’t until moving to Vienna to study languages at the age of 21, that Mr Carluccio discovered his passion for cooking.
“I wanted to eat the food that my mother made, so I had to cook it for myself,” he said.
“I met lots of people while I was there and I discovered that cooking for others is a great joy.”
After stints in Vienna and Berlin, Mr Carluccio followed his heart to London in the summer of 1975, where he traded as a wine merchant while finding his way around the language and culture - and the wild mushrooms - of his new home.
While the foodie admits that he found the food in London to be “miserable” when he arrived, it wasn’t long before he brought a little bit of Italy to diners’ plates.
Marrying into the Conran family, Mr Carluccio was appointed manager of Sir Terence Conran’s Neal Street Restaurant in Covent Garden in 1981.
The restaurant was an immediate success and traded for 26 years, feeding the likes of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Despite brushing shoulders with royalty and cooking for the rich and famous who were worlds away from his more modest background, Mr Carluccio was never necessarily star-struck by his diners.
“I am a human being and so is everyone else,” he explained.
“You can admire someone for what they have done but not for who they are; we are all equal.”
Also in 1981, Mr Carluccio was named runner-up in the Sunday Times Cook of the Year competition, and word of his culinary skills began to spread.
As the “Carluccio” name took over the London food scene, he went on to mentor fellow cooking greats, including Jamie Oliver and Gennaro Contaldo, his co-star in the television series 'Two Greedy Italians'.
Going by the motto “mof mof”, meaning “minimum of fuss, maximum of flavours”, Mr Carluccio has shared his philosophy of simplicity with the rest of the world, and is renowned for his love of fresh food with few ingredients.
The top foodie often eats Spaghetti, aglio, olio e peperoncino at home, claiming that you can make it in seven minutes and that there is “instant gratification”.
He also wishes his last meal to be spaghettini with fresh tomato, basil and olive oil - no parmesan!
Today, more than 1000 people experienced first-hand how simplicity is the key to a delicious dish, and discovered that sometimes more is less.
As we enjoy the next nine days of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, perhaps we should keep in mind the words of Mr Carluccio: “mof mof”!
