Marialuisa Castrignano

Conversation with a Chef: It's so nice and calm here. You've got really busy Fitzroy Street just out there, but it feels very relaxed in here.

Marialuisa Castrignano: Yes. It is calm here now. We are like waves. Sometimes there is a queue and then it is quiet. There are waves, so I feel like we are really resonating with the beach.

How long have you been here?

One year. I've been doing my milk for the last three years. I do four different nut milks. I started this project three years ago. Then one year ago I said, you know what, I will open a cafe, so people have somewhere where they can go for a coffee because there's a culture of coffee here, but a caf where they can get a fresh nut milk. It was really and exclusively for the actual milk, not because I wanted to open a cafe, it's because of the milk. And then the same as the concept of the milk, I try to replicate everything with the food, so everything's homemade. The taste is so different when you bake your own cake, as opposed to one that you go and buy. Everything here on display, everything is sweets or savoury, it is freshly made by us.

It looks beautiful on the blog too. I saw some of your recipes. How did you get into making nut milk? Where did that start?

In the middle of Covid, my full-time job was in childhood education. However, coming from where I come from in Italy, it's very much about simple, fresh, real flavour. So because of this, through Covid, and I love eating real food. I'd rather be starving rather than just eat something to fill me up because it makes me truly happy, and otherwise I will be upset to just have something to fill me up and that's it. And I always like to explore and see new products. I'm always interested in the food department. I thought, in Melbourne, we have the culture of coffee. But whenever it is about alternative milk, I found it, to be honest, very shocking what people choose and the choices they have apart from making their own. Lots of people don't have time to make their own. It's a bit of a process. It's simple, but it requires time. So I thought, nobody's doing fresh nut milk in Melbourne. I'm going to start. This was when I got kind of serious. I was buying nut milk off the shelf trying them and even if I was blindfolded, I wouldn't even pick the almond flavour. I bought so many brands and for me they were either super sweet, they hardly had a taste of almonds or none at all, I would never guess that would be an almond milk, if I hadn't read it. So that's why I started to make my own. I started with the highest percentage in Australia, 20% because I wanted even a child to be able to say this is something with almond and the ingredients that I use are completely natural. That's why I also call the business Al Naturale, which in Italian means natural.

What are the four ingredients?

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Activated nuts, so even better for your body because you can digest them better. I use activated nuts, filtered water, a pinch of salt and one single date to balance off the tartness of the nuts. You don't taste the sweetness at all, its just, you know when you put a bit of sugar in the tomato sauce, to kill the acidity. And that's it. It's completely natural. But what is very unique besides obviously these simple ingredients is the fact that I use a lot of nuts, otherwise the milk will be super watery. There are so many nuts. You are really drinking a nut.

How do you activate a nut?

So simple, all you do is take the nuts, put them in normal water, no salting, just water. I leave it there to activate for 24 hours. Then the next day the water is kind of brownish depending on the nut. The skin releases an enzyme. If you take the activated nuts and a nut from the box, they are such a different product, nevertheless is exactly the same nut flavour wise, completely different size and the way they look. Activated nuts are so much healthier for you. Number one, you can digest them better, and number two is nutrition-wise, compared to the one that you buy in the packet that are not activated, it's like you gaining 60% of the benefits compared to 100%. It's a little bit like veggies. When you overcook them, you lose most of their properties. But when you cook them just enough all of the properties are still there.

And I saw that you do walnut milk as well. Are you the only person doing walnut milk?

I haven't seen much around. So many people ask why I don't do soy, but my goal is not to replicate what's there. It's to make something new. In this case, milk made out of nuts. In fact, I want to extend my range, do macadamia, cashew, pecan, but everything related to nuts and be a little bit different health wise, but also uniqueness and having a very niche, truly healthy, good product for you.

You were talking about Italy before. Is nut milk very prevalent in Europe?

It is getting more and more as dairy intolerance increases. However, when I left Italy, which is over 15 years ago, it was very rare to see these alternative milks. Now I can see it more and more, but it's a similar story as Australia with a long shelf life and the long lists of ingredients that they put inside. I was, to be honest, while I was developing this concept back three years ago, very sad for people that, who have whatever condition, lactose free or intolerant to certain food or whatever and they have to put up with this kind of commercial food. And eventually they're even brainwashed. This is healthier than cow's milk when it's really not. At least the milk from the cow goes straight into the bottle and goes to your table, whereas the alternative milks are so overly processed and it can be 50 degrees hot weather, or three years next to the window and nothing's going to happen. But people don't think about this. And then perhaps whoever orders one to three coffees a day, they have in their body so much sunflower oil, gums and sugar. But you don't think, you just think, oh, alternative is better than cow, without looking at any ingredients or without actually focusing on what it is.

So there are no preservatives in your milks

Zero.

What's the shelf life on those?

It's amazing actually. It is refrigerated from day one, you can't have it outside the fridge at all. It's be like cow's milk, so three, four to five weeks shelf life. That is actually excellent for zero preservatives.

Were there any hoops you had to jump through or regulations you had to work out to go from you experimenting with nut milk at home to then selling it?

Yes. Giant hoops. It felt like making dairy products. So hard. It was only a nut milk. The trials, I was doing them at home to finalise the product. But then straight away I rented a commercial kitchen and I started with Farmer's Markets back in covid and started selling them there because they were very popular. I rented the commercial kitchen, it wasn't mine. It was very full on. My product is a high risk product, number one because of the nuts. Especially because of allergies. It was very full on. My product is a high risk product, number one because of the nuts. Especially because of allergies.

I feel like nothing's easy and possibly it's the same in other countries, but I do feel like Australia is particularly difficult to get those kinds of things across the line.

But the good thing about Australia is they are very clear what the standards are and what you need to respect in order to follow those procedures. Whereas in Italy someone tells you one thing and somebody else says something else. And they'll come back to you after a long time and ask you to change things. So overall to actually establish the business and start, I find it's same thing as opening the cafe. It's a pretty straightforward process compared to the bureaucracy in Italy.

What are some things you've learned about hospitality from opening a cafe?

Since I was very little, I always had back and forth some hospitality experience. When I came to Melbourne, I learned the top of the top of what is hospitality. I think we have a very great culture here, in service especially. I was doing dinner, in restaurants more than cafes. I have that kind of background in Melbourne. I definitely picked up a lot in terms of high standard service. I left it completely because I did my project for my visa and my citizenship with early childhood education. But otherwise, all my hospitality background in terms of high quality, high service standards in hospitality comes from working in Melbourne. In Italy it was a bit more and still is, if you go out, unless you go to fine dining luxury, it's very more easy going in Italy.

How did you choose what sort of baked goods you wanted? Do they tend to be Italian?

The food? Oh yes. Mainly. I mean obviously quite a few items like banana bread, carrot cake, we keep it general, what you expect from a cafe. But we do crostata di ricotta, which is an Italian cake, cannoli, the tarts that we do with different jams that are homemade. All this stuff is all comes from Italian recipes and stuff. Or the bacon and egg roll is an Italian style. We don't do it in the Australian style, but it's like the dough of the pizza with bacon and egg and then roll by hand as well as the vegetarian one. We also do amaretti. Amaretti, as well as frangipane comes in our own croissant. Once you squeeze the milk, you are left with a pulp. I reuse this pulp and make these Italian biscuits called amaretti. I make them in all different flavours as well as the frangipane. Whenever we can, we try to use it as much as possible.

That's great. And do you have to be careful when you're heating the milk for coffee or is it a different level, like a different heat for nut milk as opposed to dairy?

The heat that you want to reach is pretty much the same. The steaming frame time is slightly different. For example, a cow's milk would take 15 seconds versus one of our milks, which might take 13 to 12 seconds. I'm not precise with these seconds, but you know, theres a couple of seconds difference. And frothing wise, it froths fantastically. All of the nut milks do. And the reason why is because of the fat from the actual nuts, which you find in cow's milk. You dont find it in the conventional alternative milk because they use gums and oil as a fat rather than the nuts. To be honest, I didn't invent this milk for baristas or for be able to use it in coffee. For me initially, it was to truly enjoy an almond milk. My goal wasn't for baristas. That was like a gift from God, but then naturally it can actually work for coffee.

You have a barista almond milk.

Yes. But I call that one barista only because it has less almonds and I thought price wise and for other reason that it was going to be more easily used, but even the hazelnut and the walnut and the other almond, they're absolutely fine for coffee. Between the two almond, one is 8%, one is 20%, like skinny milk and full cream. That's the only difference in taste. But yeah, they all froth fantastically that's a gift from God. I didn't work out any special thing, which is something a lots of companies do because so many alternatives don't work for coffee at all. They don't steam, because they are more clean with less additives and stuff. But there is hardly be any fat from the nuts. So that's why they don't work.

So that's because they're using less nuts, is that right?

Correct. The reason why mine do work well for coffee is because of so many nuts which gives enough fat for the milk to be able to steam and froth.

I bet the milks are really nice with things like muesli and granolas.

Absolutely. Or even the hazelnut is really good in hot chocolate, it's a like Nutella in a cup, in a healthy way. Or the cacao ceremony, I have all these people that love these nuts because they like to drink pure stuff. Even matcha, any drinks besides coffee. Lots of people, particularly the Asian market who like to drink pure and simple drinks. When I say simple, I mean, straightforward ingredients, they just love to drink a glass on its own. Because it's so satisfying.

Where are you selling apart from here?

Through Covid, I built this through Farmers Market customers but some farmers market are only once a month. So customers would ask, where else can I buy it? So that's how I built in some whole food shops or premium grocery shops where they are more selective about products. I do have few stores where I stock those milks all around Melbourne. They are all over the place.

It's quite a big enterprise now. How big is your commercial kitchen? How much milk are you making a week?

I will invite you to see it in a second.

Oh, it's here?

Yes. I do it in here. I don't do giant numbers yet. Around Covid time, lots of people were hesitating about new products and everything. Lots of people were even scared to talk. Last year I stopped looking for new customers because I was concentrating my energy in opening the cafe. So the wholesale market, let's call it, didn't move much since then. So my numbers are not quite giant yet, they are just enough for what I can produce here weekly.

I feel like you're really impressive because you've got Early childhood education, you know about hospitality, now you've got a business so you have to know how to run a business and do marketing and all of those things. That's a lot as well as making milk.

Yes. With the time that we're going through, it's not the easiest thing, having a business, especially hospitality. Nowadays more than ever, whoever you talk with it is very tough. Cafes and restaurants, it's very, very tough. But I've had wonderful support. After one year of being open, I can already see the results are absolutely fantastic. People that are coming to work with me are teaching me so much about how to be a big mother in a way, in every sense. You have all of your battles as well as your trophies. But it's full on. I always said that I didn't want to have children in my life, especially after the experience in education. But then I actually, unknowingly have my own child. It's like having a child. Especially at the start when you have so much care that everything will go perfectly and you want the best people to represent you. It's been very, very, very full on, but very satisfying. Im very grateful to see that the customer leaves happy and tells you how much he loved it and gives you the feedback on the spot. That is what fulfils you. You see them coming back, coming with other people. It's already tells you that you are doing a good job and that is obviously thanks to the rest of the team as well. You can't do it by yourself.

Al Naturale, 6 Acland Street, St. Kilda