Antonio Loffredo

Hi, Antonio, thank you for being on the podcast. We’re in Pepe’s, which is really beautiful. I haven’t been in here before, and it’s really quite quirky and eccentric, isn’t it? It’s a really interesting place. 

It’s a pretty big venue and actually we are seasonal. So every six months, we do change our setup Now we are in the winter section. We have all the decor for a chalet. There’s a snow machine outside. There’s a sleigh. Even the trees outside change seasonally. Now we have the cumquat, in summer we have lemon usually. We try to recreate the winter ecosystem to give you the whole feeling. 

That’s really cool. That’s a lot of effort, though, as well, isn’t it? 

Even in summer we usually change. Every summer is a different theme. Last summer we had Sicilian summer. Some ceramic artists from Sicily meeting some special decor for us to put around the place. 

I love that. That’s a lot of intention and it must be a fun place to work. 

Actually, it is. The environment is very friendly and smiling. 

Pepe’s Parlour is a new idea. 

Yes, it’s the little sister of the big venue, Pepe’s Italian Liquor, very dynamic, very colourful, ideal for lunch with friends, and we do have a martini bar at the end of the venue, so it’s nice to stop in in the afternoon, for a drink with friends. We give everyone complimentary nuts and chips and olives with a drink. 

That’s so Italian. I was in Italy last year in September and I couldn’t believe how many little snacks you get when you have a drink. 

It’s actually the goal to recreate the feeling, like you actually are in Italy when you stop here. You have a few hours with friends, like you are on holiday. 

And the menu is completely different in the parlour?

Yes, it’s more focussed on lunch, so for people busy during office lunch hour, they can’t spend too much time. We try to give a choice between something more substantial, Italian sandwich, we make our own bread with slow fermentation, and bake it in a brick oven, that we add custom built. Basically, we did that because you can buy good bread in Melbourne, there are lots of good bakeries, to be honest. But what I don’t like is when you buy it, you have 14, 15 ingredients on the label. We make it with four ingredients: we have water, salt, yeast, flour, and a lot of patience. Then there are the other part of the menu is, we offer plates with a choice of a protein and three vegetable sides, so something more on the healthy side for people who want to eat, but go back to work still be light. 

And pasta as well?

Yes, we do have a couple of pastas, that we make fresh every day. Actually, the menu, it’s not huge, but the principal thing we try to do is to make everything fresh on the day, even the pasta fresh on the day, all the vegetables, everything. The bread is baked daily. That’s our main goal to give something nice and fresh daily. 

And then the dinner menu that that’s through here in the Italian Liquor side of things, how different is that that menu? 

The menu on this side is Italian American and changes seasonally, so every three to four months. There are a few dishes that stay there because everyone comes here for those dishes, and then everything else changes seasonally. Our classic is the vodka rigatoni vodka, that’s the bestseller. And a selection of pizzas, pasta, of course, our Lamb ragu, the tortellonis sometimes and ravioli, traditional Italian, a few Italian American dishes. 

That vodka sauce, people really go wild about that, and it’s in a few other venues as well. Why is that sauce so great? 

I think the richness. It’s creamy, spicy. And then the shape of pasta we use, everyone uses rigatoni but ours is extremely thin pasta, which we do with all the pasta we make from scratch here. We don’t buy any dry or fresh pasta from other company. We make our own. I think it makes a big difference when you have fresh pasta, with the creamy, rich sauce. 

How long have you been at Pepe’s? 

11 years actually. Basically, I arrived here 2013 and started here in 2014. I jumped through a few venues, and then I came here and fell in love with the place, and then I love with the management team and the chef and everyone, and I’ve here since then. 

Well, I think that says a lot. If you stay on a place for that long, it must be really good, 

Especially the owner. I love the way he looks at things, the way he plans. We always are months ahead. We are planning now for summer. We’re going to be ready when summer comes. I did work in other places as well, but my main job has been here. I started here here as a pizza chef, because I have a background in pizza in Italy. Then I moved through the sections, because I loved the place. I love to learn. And the chef was really good at motivating me, and slowly, slowly, I moved through the sections until I reached a management position. Then this chance  came up, they wanted to open this new area and they gave it  to me. So it was amazing. 

Congratulations. That’s a lot of hard work to get there. You made pizza in Italy. What region are you from? 

From Campania, originally from Amalfi coast. Then I moved within Italy around a few towns from Amalfi Coast to the inside, the mountain. The city is called Serino next to Avellino, not very famous, 50 kilometres from Naples. I’ve done pretty much everything in a hospitality business from when I was a kid. I started when I was 14, so I worked as a waiter, as a barista for 10 years. I aways was in love with cooking, so slowly, slowly, when I was 16, I started to learn how to make pizza. My father had a pizza shop, so he sent me there to learn. I fell in love with it. I came to Australia, and started work as a pizza chef, and during COVID actually, I had a chance to really boost my knowledge because I did a course with a world well known baker called Piergiorgio Giorilli. He opened the world for me. Before, I knew had to make it, after he showed me it’s so much more. So from that point, we started to improve the pizza, even the bread. It’s not a simple dough. We pre-ferment for 24 hours and then make a dough. Basically, you get a very light bread because the yeast digests most of the sugar in the dough. You just use the fermentation and make it the enzymes work properly. 

What style of pizza is that? Is it Neapolitan? 

It’s not really Neapolitan. It’s more on the crunchy side, so it’s more a classic Roman, but we have a little crust, a little bigger than a classic pizza. 

So hospitality was in your family, and my question is often, did you always know you wanted to be a chef? But I guess you kind of did. 

To be honest, when I was very young, I had this passion for food. I was crazy about food. Then my study was a little bit different. I studied as a surveyor when I was in Italy. But because of my dad, he was in love with food, a typical Italian, he travelled kilometres to go and find a particular salami or cheese. I was very lucky. Basically, all my childhood and part of my adult life, I never had canned food in my life. It was always fresh, always local, it was amazing. I think that was a big part of falling in love with this industry. 

Obviously you still love it because when you talk about making the food, your eyes light up. So what do you think it is? Obviously you love food and the creativity? What else about being a chef do you like? 

I think the most beautiful thing about being a chef is sharing my memory. I have certain foods, certain flavours, that when I try it, it gives me emotion and brings me back to a certain time. Food for us in Italy, and I think here as well, it’s love, it’s family. When you eat something, it reminds you of your grandma, reminds you of your family. So I love when I can design, make a dish, make it for someone, and see their face, wow, what is this? Using the traditional recipe, not just adjusting the technique using modern technique cooking and a little bit of knowledge that a chef should have. 

You learned from a few people along the way and you did the course with the baker. Where else do you get inspiration? Do you look online? Do you read books? 

To be honest, when I started my journey as a chef, I think, like everyone else, I started to look at more experienced chefs, famous chefs, celebrity chefs. There were a few of them. I love the style of cooking they have, because they keep it really simple, not too much fussing. But at the same time, they can have three Michelin stars, two Michelin stars, one Michelin star doing very simple cooking, but with premium ingredients, locally sourced. One of them is Antonino Cannavacciuolo. He is very famous in Italy now because of the MasterChef program, but I was following him many years before, for his restaurant Villa Crespi on Lake Orta. Then, of course, some Australian legends like Mark West, people like that are really inspiring in what they do. I think it’s all about passion. You need to fall in love. It’s not a job. You need to feel in love with food, you need to fall in love with cooking and from that point, you have to study, you have to search, you have to try. You have to perfect your craft. You’re never going to be the best, there is always be someone who can do it better than you, but you need to try your best to make the best possible product. For example, what I did here through the years, thanks to the chef. He knows I have this passion for a few Italian ingredients that are very rare to find here. I pushed to get them imported here and people fall in love with them because they are not common here. 

What’s an example of that? 

One is the smoked Provola. It’s an amazing cheese that’s only made in my region, in my area. I wasn’t aware of that until I was here, even another Italian chef here didn’t even know about it and had never tried. He said, “Oh, my God,” when he tasted it. Even tomatoes. On the menu, we have some beautiful local produce, Heirloom tomatoes. Unfortunately, the season is very short for that. They’re amazing when you can get them, we always use the local product. When we can’t, unfortunately, we have to import them, but even there, when we were lucky to find some of the best products available. For example, any Italian restaurant, one of the main ingredients is tomato. We have five varieties of tomato. We have the piennolo, they only grows in Vesuvio in Naples, because the volcanic soil gives you a lot more nutrients and flavour and they taste amazing. Datterini tomatoes; there’s two or three different varieties that you can get. We are you very lucky to get the best. Some are from Puglia. We are always on the search for local produce. We use many suppliers for each category. One of my favourite vegetable suppliers, he knows. Every time he finds something beautiful, he doesn’t even have to ask, he just brings it in: I got this for you. amazing. And we use it for something special. Same with the butcher, we try to find locally sourced and free range. It’s makes a difference in the flavour of the meat. Even for our pasta, we always use free range eggs, we don’t use caged eggs. 

Do you cook at home? 

I do. I’m very lucky because my wife is a chef also. So we split the cooking.

That’s so good. Would you tend to cook more Italian style at home as well? 

I like to try different stuff. We do cook Italian, but to be honest, I’m in love with Japanese food. Even if it doesn’t seem very similar to our culture. They focus on the ingredient, not too many ingredients in a dish. It’s all about prioritising the main ingredient. A little bit of Chinese too. That’s the good thing about Melbourne; coming from Italy, I didn’t have a big view of all the different cuisine that is around the world. Melbourne opened up the world to me. Ther are 15 different kind of cuisine you can get here. Some of them are amazing. 

Well, with all that in mind and really a career that has spanned for a long time since when you were little, what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef? 

I think the most important thing is to study. Understand the fundamentals, build from strong fundamentals and work around, find different jobs, try different cuisine, stay in a place, only when they find a mentor; someone that is willing to share knowledge with them and train them properly. That is the main thing. I don’t believe in the old school style. I was trained old school, but I see with the new generation, you need a different approach. You need to make them fall in love with what they’re doing. So, help them to see how beautiful it can be. Be passionate, try to learn as much as possible. I must say, a lot of places today, even fine dining, have amazing equipment. It’s fundamental to learn how to do it manually. During my career, I encountered a lot to chefs, pastry chefs too, and some of them are amazing, but they are used to working with certain equipment. The moment they didn’t have the equipment or there was a problem, they were lost. They didn’t know how to do the simple things. So, get a strong foundation and never stop learning; buy cooking books. Today is very easy with social media, with the internet. There is a huge amount of information to help you learn quickly. But it’s very important to try. Not just looking at it, try and make it. And understand when you do a mistake, it’s okay to fail. Learn from it and every time it’s going to get a little better. 

Pepe’s Parlour, 275-285 Exhibition Street, Melbourne