Francesca Giorgi Monfort

Hi, Fran. We’re in Superette on Sydney Road in Brunswick and you’re working out of the kitchen here, but about to do something else exciting here. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

I guess this is my news that as of this Saturday, the 8th of November, I’m going to be selling two flavours of pies and sausage rolls here at Superette and they’ll be available every day.

Let’s talk about the pies because Frankie’s Pie Shop. I met you at an Airbnb Experience event. And you told me about the pies and then I read about your pies in Broadsheet, and then I finally got to the market in Carlton and actually did my first eating on camera. And afterwards noticed I had pie all over my face and everything, but I went with it because the pie was so delicious. And actually I think that there should be pie flakes on faces when it’s a good pie. I did say on my post at the time and hold to this is that it was the best pie I’ve ever had.

Oh, no way.

It was a cauliflower cheese pie, but cauliflower cheese doesn’t really explain what it actually is. That pastry was so beautiful and then the filling was so great.

Thank you, that flavour was the first flavour that I came up with, so definitely it’s one that I guess I always recommend. I think I told you that that pie, well, that recipe was inspired by a Tesco recipe. I was looking for a simple pie flavour at the time. I was working at Noisy Ritual and we decided to make pies for their anniversary. And I thought, oh, okay, I’ll come up with a veggie one and a meat one. I did a bit of research, I had never really made pies before. I had assembled pies and made the fillings for the pies we made at Farmer’s Daughters, which is the shape and the no waste approach I like: doing them square as opposed round is where I got my inspiration from. This Tesco recipe came up and I was reading it and I just found it very bland and boring. It reminded me a bit of those boiled veggies that you eat as a child and that puts you up off veggies for a few years. I love the flavour of charred anything, but especially I find that when you char a vegetable, you really manage to add, the wanky people will call it a layer of flavour and whatnot. But really, it did the trick and then using good ingredients, making everything from scratch is the key to making something simple, good.

I thought when I first heard about you that it was a bold move, being from Switzerland and saying that Aussie pies were quite dull and that you were going to do better, but you have.

Well, I’m trying.

Then I was thinking, is it the filling or is it the pastry? And it really has to be both, I think.

Yeah, well, as a Kiwi, I guess you’re biased too. It’s so funny how every kiwi that comes to my stall, they will announce themselves and they’ll tell me that they’re a kiwi and they’ll tell me how important pies are and how high their expectations are. I guess most of the time they’ve been surprised or pleased, which is great. I mean, I’m sorry to diss Aussie pies. I love an Aussie pie, but it’s true that I found that no matter where you are, whether it’s in Queensland or Victoria or New South Wales, it’s always the same flavours. It’s very uninventive and it’s very cut and paste and it’s the safe option. But it is also how a lot of Australians eat; they aren’t tempted by something a bit different. They go for their classic schnitties and what they know they like. But I guess that’s where when I was growing as a chef and I always wanted to start a business, I never knew what it was going to be. And then I had a time where I was off work for a bit and that time was really eye-opening because I realised that potentially there was a niche for an actual gourmet pie shop in Melbourne, the food capital of Australia, and maybe that idea couldn’t necessarily work in Bendigo or Ballarat, but I think there’s a spot for it in Melbourne. I got started and I decided to just do things my way. I’m not a pastry chef, so I had to learn how to make pastry. That’s how I got involved with Wild Life. It was December at the time. I was off work and I had some time off and I thought, I’m going to reach out to a couple of bakeries and tell them that I want to learn and see if I can do a stage. Wild Life got back to me and it just happened that one of their chefs was on a holiday. We made a deal where I was cheffing and then when I was done cheffing, I would go in with the pastry chefs and assist them and watch and observe and learn. Léa, the pastry chef from Wild Life really helped me at the very beginning to nail the recipe and work on it and try different flavours. Eventually we nailed the one that we’re using now. But it’s always a work in progress.

What are the challenges with pastry? What can go wrong?

Oh, Puff pastry is not difficult to make. It’s not like croissants. Croissant are another kettle of fish. But Puff pastry is very technical. So once you know the technique, it’s fairly easy to do. You just have to learn the technique. What’s difficult is that it needs to rest. And I joke how much more rest my pastry gets than me. It’s temperamental with temperature because all I use is four or five ingredients, flour, water, butter, salt, and sometimes vinegar as a natural preservative. That’s it. If it’s 25 degrees outside, you’ll feel it straight away. Even your body temperature will melt your dough, so you’ve got to be really quick. You’ve got to learn to work in and out of the fridge, depending on how hot your room gets and make sure to give it the rest that it needs because otherwise it’s going to react differently during cooking.

How long does it rest?

Well, I make classic puff. And the best way to make it is over three days where the first day you make the basic dough, second day, you start the lamination. Depending on how puffed you want your puff, you’ll do more or less laminating turns. That’s what I do on day two. Day three, I flatten it and I assemble the pies. That’s in an ideal world: three days. You can still make it happen in two days, which is what I try and do on Mondays and Tuesdays. But it does need to rest. Minimum four hours, but four hours is never enough. Overnight is the best.

Does it depend on the quality of the flour and the butter as well?

A little bit, yeah. The butter definitely is the most important ingredient, I’d say, because you can use different types of flour. You can make puff with regular plain flour, but I use a mix of plain and strong flour, but butter is really the key. The dryer the butter is, the better. In fact, it was a bit of a challenge for me to find a butter that I was happy with in Australia because there’s not that much choice compared to Europe, where there’s so many butter manufacturers and suppliers. A lot of good butter that bakeries use here is imported, but I am obsessed with trying to make it as local as possible. In the end, I’ve settled on St. David’s Dairy as my butter supplier and I’m very happy with the product. And it really matters to me that I know that this butter was made from happy cows.

As a chef, as I’ve grown and the direction I want to take is to have the least waste possible, whether it’s with food, which I find easier to control or with anything, packaging or the equipment you use and so on. My pies are square because there’s less wastage with the shape. If I peel a potato for one recipe, I’ll keep those peels and I’ll puree them and add them in the beef mix. In the cauliflower pie, I use the stems, I use the leaves.

Francesca Giorgi Monfort, Frankie’s Pie Shop

We’ve talked about the pie that I ate, and I know there’s another pie in the oven for me, which is great.

That’s the Reuben.

What are the flavours that you’re going to have out of Superette?

I came up with the Reuben pie a while ago and it was definitely a hit. And because Superette Wild Life is a bakery, I just thought it made sense to tie in a classic sandwich that works in a pie, because it’s proven and tested and it was really good. So it’s going to be the Reuben pie and then kimchi folded eggs for the vegetarian pie option. Then two sausage rolls, which is going to be another best-seller of mine, the Italian meatball and Pecorino sausage roll. The vegetarian version is ricotta, tomato and fennel seeds, which is a bit more classic and traditional, but still a very nice option. I make a point to try and do good veggie options because I find veggie pies especially to be very boring or it’s often a vegetables stew, and that’s it. I try and make veggie pies better.

When I arrived, we had quite a discussion about rough puff, which sounds like something else altogether.

Yes, but that’s how it’s called. I didn’t coin the term.

You’re using rough puff for the sausage roll? What’s the difference?

Until now, I’ve been making all my products with a classic puff, the three-day process, but lately I started experimenting with rough puff just because it’s slightly cheaper, you can make it one day as opposed to two or three. So therefore it’s also faster. I’m getting close to potentially getting a lease or getting a pop-up space as well on top of the residency that I’m going to be doing here at Superette, so I’m looking at all my costings and what labour is going to look like. But saying that, I actually started noting that I really like to use rough puff just for the sausage rolls because I like how I find it slightly crisper, flakier, basically. And if I can find a way to make it to have a better end product and on my end and make my life easier, that’s what I’m going for. That was the draft that you saw over there, I was experimenting with rough puff when you walked in.

We also discussed off mike some of the challenges that surround setting up a food business on your own and, well done. You’re very resilient. You had the idea two years ago and then what happened?

What did I go through?

If you’re willing to share the trauma. What does it take to set up a business on your own here?

I definitely wish I had bigger pockets, or a bit more financial help. I started off everything on a temporary visa too. I can’t get loans, government help, or any grants or anything. It was all my savings and whatnot. But I find that the process is not that straightforward where you really need to do so much homework as to what permits do you need, how much is everything going to cost you, how can you make it work? I don’t have my own space. I’ve been working at the back of Superette in their kitchen after hours when they close. If you see the lights on in the evening, it’s me. I guess I got really lucky to have my own kitchen space to use because the worst-case scenario is those rental kitchens for $100 an hour. And, without your storage space, I complain that I only have only one single drawer and a couple of freezer shelves. But I guess those restrictions, if anything, have allowed me to become better because when you have restrictions, you have to work within those and you need to be creative as to how you can make your life easier when everything is so difficult already. But to answer your question from that the moment, the idea was born and it took me probably six months, I wanted to create a brand and come up with something that would resonate and with how I envisioned it and I worked with a designer to help me and he did a really good job at really translating my thoughts into images and a logo and a brand identity. And from the moment that was born and with Léa from Wild Life, we had nailed the puff and I had a few flavours, only a few to start with, and I was inspired by Tarts Anon, how they rotate the menu monthly and I thought, how cool would it be to do that too? I get very bored if I do the same thing on and on and on. So at least I know it’s always the same product, but by changing the filling, I can stay creative, and I can have fun and I can do something a bit different and change it up every now and again. But you do your timeline and things do end up taking a bit longer. I think I planned to open in April and, by opening, I mean, launching my first market. I think June was my first market, June 24. Finding a market was challenging because I really wanted the Carlton Farmer’s Market. They were my first choice. But at the time, there was another pie shop there, Pie Thief. And I only got the spot there because unfortunately, Pie Thief closed. So that was lucky for me in Calton Market, a Melbourne Farmer’s Market, they reached back and told me they had a spot. That was really good because the previous market I was at was not a foodie market and I learned the hard way. I just wanted to start, I didn’t know where. I just thought, okay, I want to be somewhere that makes sense with what I’m trying to make, and Fitzroy seemed to be a good fit. I started off at the Fitzroy Mills. It’s always a very busy market, but it’s a clothing market. And people there don’t necessarily care about my specialty pies. They just want a cheap feed and a quick feed. It was trial and error, you live and you learn. The first six months were tough because I was not necessarily at the most foodie market or the best market for me to start. But yeah, what do they say: adapt or die? I guess the journey is all about adapting and finding different ways to do things and figuring it out and eventually you get closer and closer. And the goal is to open a shop. And that was my goal by the end of this year to make it happen. So far, I’ve had three rejections from three different places where they found a better fit or someone with deeper pockets or a more financially stable position or rental history, which is what seems to be the main one. If I had rental history, I feel that it would be a bit easier for me, commercial rental history. So a pop-up potentially could be a short term thing that could be a compromise for me to create that or to have that rental history and to prove myself because I feel like it’s all about proving yourself when you’re doing everything by yourself and have a small business.

The day that I went to the Carlton Farmers’ Market, it was a really sunny day. There was an amazing guy singing. It was like background soundtrack to it all. Everything was in abundance. There were some really great fruit and vegetables and some beautiful flowers and everyone was really happy.

So you were there on a good day.

A great day. People were coming to you and saying, I’ve had your pies before, I love them and you’ve got such a great personality and you were chatting to everybody I thought well, what a great time. That’s on a good day and so then when it rains or there’s other things going on, it must be hard.

For sure, having a roof over your head, some businesses, I guess, perhaps take it for granted. When you’re doing markets, you’re very, very dependent on the weather. It’ll impact your numbers, but that’s why a good market is so important if you’re starting food business because that market has a really solid base of loyal customers that do their weekly shopping there and come back. And if I look at my numbers on those worst days, the return customers are really what allow me to keep going. I’m very grateful that that market has such a nice community and I acknowledge as a small business, especially how important it is to have those repeat customers because they’re the ones that keep you going.

I hadn’t really thought about it, but you said before that you can really manage wastage better when you’ve got a bricks and mortar shop because you don’t have to be cooking all of the product that you take to market. And obviously, in this day and age chefs have a great sense of how to prevent wastage.

It’s growing. It’s not there yet.

It’s part of the cost of everything, isn’t it?

Oh, for sure. I’m still shocked. I still work on the side. I do shifts left and right, because I only do two markets a month. But yes, to answer your question, I literally only have two sales opportunities per month where I make my batches and I hope that I’m going to sell out. But if I don’t, because it’s been rainy or a cold or public holiday or a holiday or whatever, then I have some leftovers and that stock for sure wouldn’t be a leftover if I was able to just refrigerate it or keep it for the next day, that wouldn’t happen. As a chef, as I’ve grown and the direction I want to take is to have the least waste possible, whether it’s with food, which I find easier to control or with anything, packaging or the equipment you use and so on. My pies are square because there’s less wastage with the shape. If I peel a potato for one recipe, I’ll keep those peels and I’ll puree them and add them in the beef mix. In the cauliflower pie, I use the stems, I use the leaves. They may be a bit bitter and that’s why the industry chucks them because they’re a bit bitter, they’re not perfect. But a pie is such a great vessel to use your leftovers. Even at home, I love doing fridge puzzles and figuring out ways, okay, I didn’t do my weekly shop, I have random bits and bobs and it’s all about how can you combine them to make something cohesive. A pie is a great vessel for me to do that. And I guess having my own business, I’m able to choose what goes to waste and how I can improve? Then you speak to other chefs with whom your vision or your ethos aligns and you get tips and tricks on or on how to do things better. But waste is a big problem. I worked at Oz Harvest before I went off on my own because I really care about educating people on how they can prevent food from going to the landfill. A lot of people don’t know that 10% of the world’s emissions come from food being wasted and emitting methane as it decomposes in the ground. And I use the word decomposing loosely because it actually really just rots away and doesn’t really decompose as it would in a compost bin, which is where our food scraps should end, really. But it does take more logistics, and it does take a tiny bit more work, but I just think it’s about structure and it has to come from the top down. I see so much waste in the industry. It’s just beyond me. Sometimes it is people being disorganised, not having systems in place or sometimes, or I guess it’s a lack of education with what you can do is things or lack of, again, organisation because it takes too long, it’s cheaper to just get rid of it. But I don’t believe in that. I just think you’ve got to find ways. Once you have a structure and a system, you can apply it to different types of ingredients.

Now that you’ve found your calling, your vocation, and it has been challenging, but you’re still here, what is it that you love about working with food and being in hospitality?

Well, hospitality is about making people happy. And food is about sharing and getting people together and being able to transform something beautiful into something else and the process as well, working with beautiful ingredients. And I guess the end result, too to see a smile on someone’s face, you can really bring happiness with something really good, or a really good service.

Thank you. We didn’t even go into living in Switzerland, but that’s for another time. Because I can smell my pie in the oven.

And I see a smile on a face, so I’m happy.

Frankie’s Pie Shop