Matilde Razzoli

Conversation with a chef: How are you?

Good. Excited. I was listening to a couple of episodes. I was listening to the one with Aleksis from Molli.

He's amazing. I think his mind is going the whole time. When we were sitting down at one point, because it was a Friday afternoon, he was so aware of the pass as well that at one point he had to get up and run a dish because the front of house staff were all busy.

A friend of mine is the bar manager, Kayla Saito. We worked together and I havent had the chance to go there, but I'll definitely get there. How's the food there?

It's really good. Really good. Really flavoursome and quite different and the dining room's really beautiful. It's a new building, but they've made it feel a bit lived in with some antique furniture and so on.

Nice. I wanted to go tonight, but they're closing at 5pm.

I suppose they have to have a night off. I had a look at your Instagram account and it's so beautiful.

Is it?

You really love food, clearly.

Yeah, I love food.

You've done some teaching as well.

I was doing some teaching for a while from home, it was just my business. I wanted to do something different. I'm a creative person, so I always need my outlet. I always like to share what I know about food and I really like teaching people. I've noticed over time the importance of having a mentor and someone that really teaches you the right things in the right way. So for me, teaching is just something that is so valuable. I thought, why not share what I know with people who want to learn about food. And that was fun.

I think nowadays people are a bit afraid of food, afraid to create their own food or of making mistakes. And some of those simple things and the techniques that I see chefs using, which seem to come so naturally to you, ordinary people, we don't always know about. I love going to cooking classes for that reason.

You get all the tips and tricks.

Exactly. A few hacks and things.

I always like to give some tips and tricks because people are like, ah, I really didn't know I could do this thing this way. I didn't know I could smoke a trout at home if I wanted to. So that's the beauty of it. I think nowadays you see more and more tips and tricks in reels when you see videos. Video content is so available now that some people pick them up, other people don't.

I watched the baby carrot risotto reel that you did. I would never have thought of putting carrot in risotto. It looked so good.

It was so good. I was surprised by my own food there. I tried the recipe, but I didn't know it was going to be so good. I have a bunch of those videos that I have to publish. I might publish some more.

Please do.

I have a lot that I've done before starting with these guys at Elio's. I've done a lot of filming. It was fun. It really pushed me to do a lot of research, even more than I usually do, because you need to tell a story as well behind when you like record. That's right. It was fun though. Did you try and make it?

I just looked at it yesterday, so I haven't quite got there yet. But I want to. And the pollen that you used to bring out the flavour of the carrot.

Fennel pollen.

So interesting.

Sometimes when you work in restaurants, you come across all these different ingredients. And especially if you work in fine dining restaurants, they use more particular ingredients. If you're really passionate about food, you have these flavours and memories that stay in the back of your mind and sometimes when you need them, you think about them and they pop up and they work. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't.You just need to try things and taste everything all the time. That's what I do.

Do you have notebooks? Do you write things down or how do you remember all those things that you've tried?

A lot is in my brain. I'm really obsessed with food. It's one of the few things that I'm good at in life. My brain is really focused on food all the time, 24/7. But yes, I'm like the chef Aleksis. He's a spreadsheet guy. I am also a spreadsheet girl. I love a spreadsheet. I have notes and I have lists of things that I like. It's ever changing as well. I don't like to do the same thing twice. I like to change things in a dish. If one year I do a dish in a certain way, I like to change maybe one component of the dish or the way that we serve it. Also this is the first head chef role for me chef for me. So, my journey's just begun. The possibilities are endless now for me. I have the freedom to do basically whatever I want. It's going to be fun. I'm excited.

How long have you been at Elios?

Two months. I met the guys just before I left for Italy. I went to Italy in July just to visit my family. I go every summer and I saw an ad and I had just bought an investment property, so I was doing my business. I wasn't paying myself with my business because it wasn't enough to pay myself. I was doing some cooking classes, some events. But as you know, I really needed the consistency. I was doing two or three jobs to sustain myself. I really needed something fixed and safe. So I started to look for new jobs. I always loved hospitality, I always loved restaurant life and fine dining and creating menus. I saw an ad and we got in touch and they hired me. I did the whole menu before going to Italy. We did the tasting of the whole menu in a couple of weeks at Gretas, one of the cafes they have. I went to Italy, came back and the day after I was here with them again building up a restaurant. I had that holiday and we weren't sure if with the dates would work, but it did work.

And good to have a holiday before you start something like this as well.

It was perfect. I was refreshed and full of inspiration from Italy. I went to Amsterdam and Belgium as well. So I saw a bit of Europe.

I'm going to Amsterdam later in October. Well actually I'm flying out in three weeks to France and then I'm working my way up.

Are you going to Amsterdam?

I'm going to go to Copenhagen and Amsterdam.

I definitely have a recommendation. Choux. It was good. It was big space, super busy. So booking recommended. But I found the flavours to be really, really good.

Good to know. I'll go. Is this the first menu that you've put together?

I've done some popups. A couple of years ago I was doing popups at Sleepys Wine Bar in Carlton North on Nicholson Street. A guy that owns it, used to work with me, Steve Chan. We worked together at Capitano and he opened Sleepys. I did the first popup at Faraday's Cage, which is the cafe next to Bar Liberty. They do breakfast and lunch. I did a couple of popups and then I found Sleepys was a better fir for me. I did few events there. A couple of events at Manze in North Melbourne.

Is that he Mauritian restaurant?

Yes. So, I was creating the menus for the popups first. But this is the proper official menu that

I've done.

Do you have a brief or could you just do what you wanted to?

The brief is all day European bistro. We have a breakfast menu as well. And then lunch and dinner. The menu is created to be shared. It's European with obviously pretty strong Italian influences because of me. I'm Italian, but just European vibes, but also contemporary Australian because we are also in Australia.

It looks so good. I do like a whole flounder. I'm from New Zealand and I went to this amazing restaurant. I feel like it's got better and better in New Zealand. I've been away since 2011. And a couple of visits ago I went to this incredible vineyard just up the hill from Christchurch. There was a really young chef who's now come to Melbourne and he was doingbeautiful flounder that had just been caught locally. The whole menu sounds delicious.

The feedback has been so far very, very positive. I'm pretty happy. There are a couple of skewers that are popular. The Ox tongue and the cabbage. They're definitely bestsellers. Burrata and the octopus is selling really well.

Some of the winter things will change. All the spring vegetables are going to hit us. I try and work with farms as well, it depends in what they have. Maybe in spring and summer we'll order a little bit more from the farm. It's not a restaurant that is super produce focused, but I've always worked in fine dining and in places where we were really produce focused. I'll try and bring that here as well, as much as we can. And it's going to get more and more as we go.

What part of Italy are you from?

I'm from Tuscany, near Florence. It's a good position because you can easily reach the north and easily reach the south. In summer I've always travelled to the south with my parents and I used to ski a lot, so I've always done many holidays in the north as well. Always travelled. My parents love to travel, so I've been pretty lucky. Never to Australia. I just came to Australia to live.

Why Australia?

I had a couple of friends living here and one of my good friends in Italy worked in hospitality as well. And she always was telling me, Matilde, you need to go to Australia. It's amazing. And one year I had the chance to come here for holiday and I loved it. And I moved here.

And straight to Melbourne?

Yes. I was in Melbourne. I've had holidays to Sydney and Byron Bay. But Melbourne is Melbourne. I love Melbourne. In terms of the hospitality scene, I am really career focused, really food focused, very focused as a person. So Melbourne was the obvious choice for me. And Sydney's a bit too hilly. I like the flatness of Melbourne. I used to ride a bike in the beginning. I love the sea, but I'm not crazy about the ocean like everyone else is. I like the European sea, it's smaller. No sharks. So Melbourne is perfect.

It's funny, I was talking to an Uber driver yesterday. He was saying, he didn't know why anyone would come to Melbourne because the weather's awful, everything's awful. But for me, Melbourne is all about the culture. I reckon it's good that the weather is the way it is then people are inside and eating and doing art and music. I think coming from a small town in Christchurch, Melbourne is quite accessible. It's not too brash. Because you can stay within any suburb if you want to and there are great places to eat and things.

There's the bubble in the suburb. Every suburb has its own bubble. I live in the west, I live in Flemington. I feel like all my friends live in the west mostly and they stay there. And people that live in Fitzroy usually hang out in Fitzroy. People that live in Brunswick. There's so much in Brunswick right now. Brunswick is the new Fitzroy. What makes Melbourne great? I think it's the culture. We have something going on every year. There's the Melbourne Film Festival, there's going to be the AFL Final soon, the tennis in January, the Formula One, there's always something going on.

That's right. I feel like when you speak to Italian or French or Greek people, that food is a large focus in their upbringing, so it feels like a silly question, but was food a big part of your family life growing up?

Yes. My parents are not chefs, so that wasn't part of my upbringing in that sense, but they love food. We love eating food and we have the best of the best produce in Italy. I grew up eating amazing food, but I wasnt like the other chefs that are born and they always knew what they wanted since age four. That wasn't me. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I was 20, 21 after Uni. I dropped out of University where I had started studying Economy. I decided it wasn't for me. I didn't want to waste time or money on Uni. And I had a few months where I wasn't sure what to do. I always found cooking pretty appealing; cooking and photography. I was in between those two. During a trip in the US with my family, just traveling, I just decided that I was going to go for cooking. That was the beginning of my career. I started by attending the Cordon Bleu in Florence and from there I did a couple of hard internships in Michelin star restaurants in Florence. They really form you pretty well, I'd say. And I loved it. I've always been pretty good at it, so that fuelled my passion.

And you sound like a curious person as well.

I've always been a very curious person. There's so much to discover in food and drinks as well, so it's perfect. It's just a way to connect with people. Everyone loves food, well, not everyone, but it's my way of connecting with people, most of my friends are foodies, so it's a great way to connect. It was later in my life for me, but when it clicked, it became an obsession, but a healthy one, hopefully. I was obsessed with food, and I still am now. I love food.

I spoke to another Italian chef at Park Street Pasta and Wine in South Melbourne. And he was saying that it's a really hard job in Italy because it's not very well paid, you could do long hours, and so on. Is that what your internships were like?

My internships were not paid at all. And long hours, well as many hours as everyone else was doing. Maybe 10, 11 hours. Some people do 16-hour shifts.

Were you doing things like just picking herbs?

At the beginning especially. I did a stage in a three Michelin star, and at the beginning we were doing prep with other chefs, but as you said, maybe more washing vegetables and picking herbs and the service kitchen was a bit separated by a couple of steps from the prep kitchen and the first month – I was meant to do just one month there – and then I extended, I chose to do two months. The first month we were just staring at them doing service. We were not allowed to do anything. Then once they see that you work hard, they trust you. It's old school hospitality, a bit too much for me now. But I try to get the best out of that and translate it into what I do. For example, cleanliness: we can't just do whatever we want in the kitchen because there's so much risk in terms of when you're handling food. We need to be safe and nice to each other. It was really hard at the beginning, but I loved it. It was like a love hate relationship. It was so hard on me. I had sciatica. I was working super hard, but I've always been very curious, intense as a person and cooking kind of matches that. It's one of the reasons why a lot of restaurants, it's go, go, go, and then go home. I'm a bit like that as a person too.

It does sound perfect for you because it's got all those elements of continuing to learn and discover and feeding people and then the thrill of service.

Yes, and now it's going to get even more interesting for me because I'm learning even more. I've always managed people when I was a chef as well. But now it's more about, you look at the spreadsheet and you learn more of the business side as well, which is very interesting.

And what is your leadership style, do you think?

Strict, but fair. I'm pretty strict when it comes to food, and I think consistency is key when you have a restaurant, you want the food to be consistent for the customer. I've never done an opening, so this was very new for me. And I think we've done pretty well here at Elios. When service is on we need to be focused and sharp, but if something happens or there is a problem, we'll talk about it and after service everyone has a laugh. But during service, especially if it's a busy night, I would like everyone to be focused. I'm not an angry chef though. I'm just strict.

How do you handle that stress of overseeing other people in a really busy service? What's your strategy?

For me now, I enjoy it because it's the kind of stress that I love. It fuels me to the point that sometimes I forget to eat. No, it's true. I just love this job. I just love what I do and I love things to go smoothly. So I love being busy. I love when the restaurant is super packed and I need to manage everything in a smooth way. That's where I thrive. But at the beginning when I was not used to do that, there was a lot of anxiety in that as well. Everything is new. So when I teach someone, or when I have someone that is not at the level yet and I need to bring them up to that level, I always try and think about me having all that anxiety back in the day. So I try to say things in a way that is strict, but without trying to make the person feel small or bad about what they're doing, come on, we can do this. Let's do it together. I'm here for you. I'll show you twice and if I need to show you another two, three times, we'll do it again.It's fine. But then at some point you'll get it and you'll improve.

What do you eat on your days off?

I love going out to eat. I love Melbourne because it's such a melting pot of different cultures. In Italy, we have obviously immigration, but the hospitality scene doesn't really reflect that as well as Melbourne does. It's not that integrated. So, I love to try everything. We have amazing African restaurants on West Coast Road in Flemington. Sometimes with my partner, we go out and try those randomly. Sometimes I plan, and we have a list that is never ending of places that we want to try. I go everywhere. I go to eat pizza, I go to eat in restaurants. But if I have to cook for myself, I like to eat healthy food. I try not to eat too much red meat. It's pretty boring to be honest. I just try to keep myself healthy. I don't love junk food that much. I like it once in a while, but now, that Im getting a bit older, it makes me feel a bit heavy. But yeah, I eat everything. I just love food. Maybe tonight we'll have pizza.

Nice. So with all that in mind, and your experience, what would your advice be to a young person starting out as a chef?

I would advise them to be curious and to always ask questions. Never be scared to ask questions. Be passionate about what you're doing. If you realise that cooking is not for you, maybe you should explore different options because it's a really tough job and it takes a lot away from your weekends and your friends. But I feel like nowadays we live in a society where everyone does different jobs. There are less people doing nine to five. It's a bit different. Everyone does different jobs in different hours. But before when I was studying, most of my friends were doing nine to five and I missed all the birthdays and parties. But to get back to the topic, I would say, just be passionate, be curious, ask as many questions as you can, and really try and understand how things work. Don't stop at the first clue. You really need to understand how everything works.

Elio's Place, 1/238 Flinders Ln, Melbourne