Claudio Casoni

Have you had a coffee?

I did have a coffee. I had an espresso. It was delicious.

I've been importing the coffee since the very beginning. It's a friend of mine in Bologna.

Someone was telling me the story about when you were a student over there you would cross the town and pay three euros for a coffee rather than the one euro that all the other students would pay.

Today, if you talk about specialty coffee, it's something that everybody is familiar with. You know, what it means, and especially in Melbourne, at the time we were talking about, 2003, so we're talking about 20 years ago. It was already pioneering in Bologna. Have you ever been to Bologna?

I haven't, no.

Bologna is full of towers, but in the city there are these two leaning towers, and there's a classic piazza, a square there. There's a small alleyway that leads to his first espresso bar, which is a very classic charming Italian espresso bar. My friend, Manuel, is considered one of the best artisan Italian roasters today. He comes from a family of hospitality entrepreneurs. He opened his espresso bar in the late nineties. Then he wasn't happy with the quality of coffee that was around and decided to start sourcing the green coffee from central and South America and roasted on his own. He has incredible expertise. When I tasted it, I fell in love with it. I didn't know that years later I would myself in Melbourne, in an espresso bar. Since the very beginning, I want to do an espresso bar that reminds you of espresso bars in Italy since I'm Italian myself, and Armando, Davide. We wanted to have that true representation of the Italian espresso.

It's quite chocolatey and so smooth. I feel like I've had quite bitter Italian coffee before, but that's not bitter at all.

When we talk about Italian coffees, like when you talk with pizzas and other stuff, a lot of Italians get triggered. The truth is that Melbourne baristas, especially in the last 20 years, have done an outstanding job with coffee roasting. And that's another thing why I look up to them. They did that with their own philosophy, which is very different from the Italian one.The problem with the Italian coffee market is that it's been stuck for decades. And most roasters still do the same products they used to do 50 years ago without taking into account the evolutions in the sector. You have to know where to get your coffee today in Italy because sometimes you still find those very bitter classic Italian espresso, which is not very nice. But at the same time, there are some pioneers, like Manuel. He was interviewed by the CNN. There's an international espresso bar guide that's been curated by five or six journalists from New York. And he ended up with two of his espresso bars in the guide of best espresso bars in the world. Hes extremely passionate and competent about what he does.

I was charmed by what he was doing. It was 20 years ago. It was completely going against the trend. Italians wanted to pay – and this is one of the problems in Italy – Italians wanted to pay one euro for espresso. It's always been like that. So it's hard with the rising cost of labour, ingredients, coffee and all of that to keep the, the price of a cup below one euro. If you really want to serve a quality coffee today in Europe, it must be no less than 1 euro 40. He was doing two euros 20 years ago. But it was really serving excellence, and that triggered a lot of Italians because they thought, oh no, this is not possible, it's ripping people off. He went through a lot of criticism until he got recognized for his work, by a few journalists, the specialty movement was rising and all of that. Then he got recognized for the product and what he was doing. But that's why I always looked up to him because he's been a real pioneer.

And at that time you weren't thinking you were going to have an espresso bar in Melbourne. What were you thinking?

I thought I was going to be an engineer. I graduated in 2007, chemical engineering in the University of Bologna and Moderna, which are together. I thought that my career was going to be engineering. Actually that's what I wanted to do. And I found a job in one of the major companies outside Bologna. That's how I started in the engineering field. I was happy. I liked my job. I travelled as well to USA for my company. Then after three years, the company, well Italy and Europe started going through the GFC. That changed a lot of dynamics inside the company and lots of politics, lots of internal fights. I got a little bit burned out. I was young. The corporate life here is the same sometimes. It was very, very tough. I went through some sort of, I call it, a personal crisis, because I loved my job, but I was forced to consider whether that's was what I wanted to do in life. I think it happens to pretty much everybody at one point. I thought that the best way to go through my crisis was to take a gap year and do something else. I took the chance, two of my best friends just graduated from Uni as well and we thought, let's leave, let's go somewhere completely different from Europe. It was either USA, Canada or Australia. Canada was too cold. We decided on Australia. It was meant to be only one year.

What did you know about Melbourne before you came?

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. The only thing that I knew was there's a huge Italian community. So instead of going to Melbourne, we flew to Perth because we didn't want to, take the risk of going somewhere totally different and ending up amongst Italians. We wanted to avoid that. And so we landed in Perth. We spent six months in Perth. Then we bought a car at an auction, and we travelled with a car from Perth to Sydney all along the southern coast line. Best trip of my life. I did a lot of road trips, because my dad is a big fan of road trips. He travelled Europe, you can't put him on a plane. But when it comes to road trips, he travelled the whole of Europe in the seventies with a tiny Fiat.

It's iconic.

Yes, maybe I got the inspiration from him. It was beautiful, and exactly what we wanted to see; uncontaminated wilderness for miles and miles. I remember when we crossed the Nullarbor Plain from Western Australia heading into Adelaide. I had travelled a lot in my life. But what I saw there was beautiful and exactly what we were after. Then we got to Sydney. From Sydney, I thought, you know what, before leaving, I want to go and see Melbourne.

I came to Melbourne and something happened in Melbourne in the sense that Perth, Sydney, are beautiful cities. Perth has beautiful beaches, weather, amazing and Sydney is a stunning city with the opera house, the bridge, the bay. It's beautiful. But it's not where I would live. Instead when I got to Melbourne, I still remember that I arrived in February.The weather was terrible. Because February is when the weather starts changing. It was raining. I didn't have long sleeved clothes because I had this idea that Australia is a sunny place. It was like, geez, this is terrible. I thought one day it's raining. Well, maybe tomorrow will be better. No, tomorrow was even worse. But slowly, slowly I started falling in love with Melbourne. That's how I would put it because, food culture, coffee culture.

Where were you living then?

For the first three months I was in the city, and I thought that that was Melbourne. Then I had the opportunity to move into a share house with some friends of mine that I met here in Melbourne. I was in Collingwood. The first two, three years, Collingwood, Fitzroy, Abbotsford. And I thought, wow, so cool. You know, I was younger. There were house parties and I really fell in love with the life and the vibe of Melbourne. At one point, I remember this was the second year that I was in Australia. I remember having a conversation with this guy, a French engineer, who told me, you've got a degree and you've got work experience as well. You can get permanent residency. I hadnt thought of that before. I thought that sounded too easy to be honest. I went to check on the immigration website and I saw, God, that's true. I could government sponsorship, so that's what I did. It took me a year. It's not as easy as I thought, because you have to go through a long process skills assessment, English test, qualification assessment and all of that. But in one year, I had permanent residency. That was 2013. 10 years ago. I was quite surprised that once you get that, you can do whatever you want. So that's when I started thinking, you know what, instead of going back to corporate life in Italy, how about I move here for good and I do something here? At the same time, I was extremely charmed seeing how many young guys of my age here in Melbourne had the opportunities that we don't have in Italy or in Europe in general. This is really a land of opportunity. I thought since moving here was going to be a big change, , how about I make it even bigger? I changed something that I truly love. Not that I didn't love my job. But I didn't like the corporate life. I didn't like what working for 10, 20 years in a company turns you into. That's what triggered my crisis in Italy. I was looking up and thinking, which one of these people do I want to become? Because that was the outcome. Youre ging to become one of these. And then I realized I didnt want to become one of them. Instead I decided, it was a big risk, but I decided to take it in the name of, you know, the passion I had for coffee, for hospitality.

I would say a story that I always like to tell is when I was working as an engineer, I used to work with big budgets, lots of money, numbers, computers, equipment, laboratory and things like that. Imagine at the end of a full week, for example, full of stress. Yes, the reward was there, but I was going home to my mum, to my family. No one cared. No one cared because they couldn't understand what I was doing. Not that that was getting me frustrated, but I was thinking, my reward is there and exists only when I'm there. As soon as I'm outside, people don't care about it. Not that I needed attention or validation, but once I discovered what hospitality brings you, you make a good coffee, you say buongiorno to a lady, you have a chat with someone, you can change their day. You see the, the impact that seeing maybe grumpy people, stressed people walking into the espresso bar, thinking, I'm in a rush, I want a coffee, this is another silly Monday. But you notice the immediate reward that you get when the mood changes because of the experiences you deliver. And it takes something that is a lot easier than spending hours in the laboratory in front of computers, going through numbers. I fell in love with the immediate reward that that gives you. Then you see the people who want to come back just to have the coffee you made and the chat and the energy that you give them. I never wanted to go back.

Did you work for someone else first before you opened your place?

I used to work for the Nicolini brothers. I don't know if you know them, but basically the people behind D.O.C., A25, a family of Italian hospitality entrepreneurs. I learned from them, especially one of the two brothers, Tony, the founder of the D.O.C group. I think he's been a pioneer of the modern Italian hospitality in Melbourne because before him, the Italian hospitality in Melbourne was still geared towards the Italians for tourists; carbonara with cream, fettucine alfredo, spaghetti and meatballs, the things that you find in Italian restaurants overseas for tourists. Tony brought freshness and innovation. He started importing ingredients. That's the name D.O.C, it's a standard. It's a set of laws that regulates the standards for authentic Italian products. That's where he got the name. And so he started having parmigiana Reggiano or real pecorino. I remember 12 years ago when they first they allowed the importing of prosciutto. Before it wasn't even legal. You couldn't import prosciutto.

That's so recent.

Very recent. I remember because I was here in Melbourne. When the first prosciutto arrived in a restaurant, we unpacked it, it was on a counter and there were all these Italians there, it was like opening a treasure box. It's thanks to people like them who brought a whole new wave in Italian hospitality in Melbourne.After that it has been booming. For the last 10 years you've got Italian restaurants, some of the most successful ones that are not even owned by Italians. For example, Tipo 00 in the city, one of the most successful pasta bars in Melbourne. It's not even owned by Italians. think in the kitchen there's an Italian-Australian, but the other business partners are not even Italians. They learned from the experience that Tony and let's say other innovators did in Melbourne.

What did you like about this part of town for opening the espresso bar?

I think, despite the fact I was, let's say in the northern suburbs and I was in love with them. And that's where I think I got a big push about the idea of coffee and living in that part of town allowed me to understand; God, there's lots of things that you can do. Coffee's not just espresso, coffee's not just the way Italians used to do it. You can do a lot more and you can improve a lot. And that's what exactly what those guys, the first coffee roasters, like Proud Mary, Seven Seeds, all the northern hipsters did. They did an outstanding job. They ended up on the Italian television not long ago. But when I started looking for a shop, the thing I liked about this area 10 years ago was that it was an area that has a lots of European charm, antique shops, boutiques, clothing, quality homeware, Bistro Thierry French restaurant, and Gewurzhaus, a German tea shop, the butcher, Toscanos, I liked the European feel and the fact that in this area here, there's lots of people that travel to Europe regularly. Some of my customers go to Italy more than me. Some of them have holiday houses in Italy, and if they don't go to Italy, they go to France.

So they understand.

They understand. What I was afraid of, for example, was that Carlton is an area that 10 years ago was taken over by sort of fake Italian restaurants. I didn't want to be forced to do spaghetti meatballs for example, or fettucine alfredo or carbonara with mushroom. I wanted to find an area that had a good understanding of what modern Italian food, authentic Italian food is.

This area is small. The street is not widespread with lots of shops. It felt a little bit like a European street. It's not easy to find this in Melbourne. So I started looking in this area. I had a look at four or five shops before I found this one, but somehow, and I think it was the presence of Gewurzhaus, Toscanos, the butcher, Bistro Thierry, that made me make up my mind. I didn't know this area. I was a complete stranger. And that was a problem I also had at the very beginning, the first two years. I got a lot of that in the first two years; I was the new player, I was the outsider. I had to earn the trust of the locals first. So then slowly, slowly, you know, word of mouth was everything.

And did you always have the idea that you wanted to have more of a restaurant in the evenings as well?

Yes. I was born and raised in Emilia-Romagna and living overseas helped me also. And the experience of living overseas got me to understand a lot about my youth there. When you grow up in a place, you take for granted everything that you have. Like my nonna making pasta every weekend. We never bought pasta. Pasta in Emilia-Romagna is made on Friday and Saturday. You eat it on a Sunday and the leftovers in the next week. I was raised on a Saturday seeing my nonna sheeting the pasta by hand and not with the machine. Not even with those machines. The pasta was all made by hand. There's an interesting documentary. You probably watched the Chef's Table. Theres an episode with Massimo Bottura in Modena. He takes the whole kitchen team to a house outside Modena where there's this lady, asfoglina, isthe one that makes la sfolia, the sheet of egg pasta. When I saw that I almost cried because I could see the heritage of those ladies, that passed on to the next generation. It's an incredible skill, without using mechanical equipment, just a wooden rolling pin that is this long, and you roll the sheet until it is a certain thickness. I remember my nonna putting it onto the pin and checking how thin it was by putting it against the sunlight so that if the sunlight was going through it means it was thin enough. I took all these things for granted. Like the Bolognese sauce she made.

My nonna made wine too. For centuries, the tradition of wine making in Emilia-Romagna was making natural wines. They weren't trendy. They weren't popular until 5, 6, 7 years ago in the first wine bars in Fitzroy. Youd see these strange looking bottles of wine with more sediments, fizziness, they're not clear, they're not filtered. I started thinking, natural wines will be a big trend here in, not only Melbourne, but I noticed even in other countries. And at the same time in the Emilia-Romagna, a lot of producers went back to the traditional natural wine making. I thought, God, its the best time for me to bring the traditions that I was raised with.

Luckily, I found Gabriele the chef, a wonderful guy. He's very passionate about pasta. He's from Piemonte, Turin, which is not Emilia-Romagna, but theyve got an incredible tradition for egg pasta, pasta sheeting, and pasta in general.

Is he making more Piemonte food then?

No, the way he learned pasta making is the way they do in Piemonte. He used to work for a Michelin star restaurant in Piemonte, but Piemonte and Emilia-Romagna are not far away. When you make egg pasta, we make it in the same way. Just the shapes are different, or we give a different name. The sauces can be different. But in general, we like to think more about the recipe than sticking to a specific originality. For example, the rigatoni beef ragu, which I think is wonderful, he came up with this idea, it's made with rigatoni, is durum wheat pasta,. And the ragu is not a Bolognese ragu, which is very finely chopped. It's more chunky. Yeah. And it's done all with a knife. It's very rustic. That recipe is more a recipe that you would find either in Tuscany or Piemonte. It doesn't really have to be a Emilia-Romagna. But what we've got in common is that there's a strong artisanal component to the recipe that we design. We make the pasta inhouse, the ragu. It would be easier to take the meat using a meat processor, and make a bolognese. The real bolognese is still done with a knife. I didn't want to grind all the meat and so we make it chunkier and we make something that is got more the trattoria feel. That's the food I like to eat when I go to Italy. There has been a big wave of fine dining restaurant. And it's good as an experience. I like going there. But when I go home, the last thing that I do is go for fine dining. I go to the trattorias, the osterias, there are thousands of wonderful restaurants in Italy, in Emilia-Romagna. I just like to get lost there and enjoy those things.

The ragu was so good with the baked eggs as well.

Gabriele's good with these things. He's got an understanding of pasta, Sometimes you do recipes, for example, more like traditional south of Italy. Last year we used to make the spaghetti vongole. This year we are doing the red spaghetti with lobster. Those are more typical of south of Italy. We don't want to get too tied up to our specific region. When you design a recipe today, you have to be very conscious of the ingredients that you use because the prices of everything went up, everything went up after the pandemic. We would rather not be tied up to originality instead I like to, because it's a cuisine that I know quite well, I like always to have something from the tradition of Emilia-Romagna. Last year we used to make Tortelli, which I want to bring out this summer again, in a bit of a twisted way. We call it Tortelli, but you can call them ravioli. Ravioli with the Parmigiana Reggiano from the red cow, which is a Parmigiana Reggiano aged 36 months. And it's made by the red cow breed, which are a lot more special because those are the former cows. They used to be used 200 years ago to make the Parmigiana Reggiano. Then they got replaced with other cows, Swiss cows, that had a better yield in terms of milk. The producers could make more cheese. But the flavour is not the same as the red cow. The red cow makes more milk. It's a cow that is more delicate to look after, but the flavour of the cheese is amazing. This summer we're going to make Tortelli with a red cow filling. A friend of mine, my neighbour in Italy, he's a young guy. He's 20 something. Hes a hard worker who wakes up every morning at five a.m. He has 20 red cows. He wakes up every day at five and he goes back home at 11 midnight. Seven days a week. There's only one thing that allows you to do this and it is the passion. I like to think, that what I do supports him as well. There's a strong component behind the idea of artisanality that we want to support, the people that work the product, the people who spend time and are dedicated to the product. It's an idea of sustainability that we've got for the future.I think at one point we have to stop. The pandemic has been a very good chance to stop and reflect about the way we are living. The way we think of food, the way we think of eating, the conviviality around the table. I like to think that we are doing something that gets us to step back a little bit; go back and understand, what's behind a cheese? What's behind a house made pasta? What's behind the natural wine?

I'll tell you this story because I remember when I had the idea of serving natural wines. I went home after three years of pandemic. I ran a business for three years throughout the pandemic and it was an absolute nightmare. Before that, I used to go back once a year and I was recharging six weeks and I was recharging the batteries and I came back with new ideas, new things, new thoughts. The pandemic had me for three years. I couldn't travel. When I went home last year, I spent the first week sitting on a chair thinking, what the heck just happened? I had this feeling of anger thinking; how did I spend the last three years? I spent the last three years running around like a headless chook every day, waking up, reading the news, the numbers, what's going to happen today, table service, no table service, take away, no take away. You're shut, youre open, an inspection from a government department, then an inspection from the police. Then check the policies, update the policies, show the policies to the coronavirus task force. So during my relaxed time last year, since my sister-in-law is an oenologist and she makes wine and she makes wine in this small vineyard outside my hometown, biodynamic agriculture, natural wine. I was sipping the wine and I was thinking, this wine would be wonderful with the cuisine that we are working on. She said, why don't you serve that? I said, because importing stuff has become incredibly expensive and troublesome. She said you know that there's someone, an Australian wine importer who imports the whole production. I say, really? She said, maybe it's in Sydney, maybe it's in Western Australia. She said, let me look it up and I'll tell you where it is. And then she goes, oh, do you know a place called Collingwood? Wow. Problem solved. This guy is Italian-Australian, and he specialises in natural wines from Emilia-Romagna. I called him, I say, Michael, bingo. That's why I have a lot of his wines. They go well with our cuisine, they go well, with our fried stuff, the Fritto that you had. The way I describe them is they've got a depth of flavour, a fizziness that goes extremely well with fried stuff, with antipasti, with the truffle croquettes and also with pasta, rustic pasta recipes. I always have that emotional connection with the wine that my nonna used to make. Making wine for them was a side thing. Lots of Italians, when they made passata and wine, it was a side thing. I remember my nonna and also my nonna's family always used to make wine. My nonna's sister owns a small vineyard and I remember every Christmas, every Easter they used to bring this wine to the table that wasunrefined, unfiltered, cloudy. And that was the only wine that I used to drink when I was little. In Italy you start drinking wine when you're little because you start drinking with a little bit in water. Then when you are more than 15, you can have it without the water. But that's a very good thing that I like about our culture because you know we grow up with the idea that wine is not a taboo. We get used to it. We know that it's part of the way we socialize and the way we spend time with our family.Especially the older ones control and pour you the wine. You're not allowed to pour yourself until you have a certain age. We don't turn 18 with the idea, God, we have to go and get the booze to get smashed. Which is what I see here sometimes.

It's the same in France.

Absolutely. When I started traveling, I started having the more classic wines, the Chianti, Pinot Gris, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc. And I thought, these wines are different from the ones I know. Then I learned, no, this is the wine known outside of my region. And I thought, oh, the wine we make is not popular outside our region. It's just our wine. Until a few years ago where I started noticing this is the wine, the wine that I used to drink when I was little. It is starting to become popular again.

It's interesting because I would've said, I don't like natural wine. I love Dr. Morse, but I went there, and all of the wines were natural wine. I'm like, oh God, I can't drink any of this. But the other night, the wines that I tasted here, I loved them. So what is that?

The possibilities when it comes to natural wine are huge. The philosophy is different from the traditional wine making. And this is another thing that I really appreciate in the philosophy, because traditional wine making can be done in every part of the world. If you do it in California, in France or in Australia, you can use the same Sauvignon Blanc, for example, the yeast that you use for the fermentation is a commercial yeast that can be found in different parts of the world. And it's assembled to give you a certain style of fermentation. In natural wine making, all these things are not allowed because you're only allowed to use grapes that belong to that indigenous grape. The one that we had the other day is pergola. It's a grape that you can grow in California, in Australia, it's a classic indigenous grape of the Emilia-Romagna that used to be used centuries ago. The yeast must come from the same land. You can't go and buy a commercial yeast. The agriculture must be either organic or biodynamic. There's no chemistry involved, no fertilizers. I picked up all of these things, to me it was very easy to understand all of these things; the definition about natural wine can be confusing. But when we talk about no intervention of chemistry and this sort of stuff, to me it's always been very clear because I understand those process. Instead of thinking, oh, I have to make a beautiful sauvignon blanc that people like, the approach is for the natural wine maker, like my sister-in-law who uses exactly that approach is how can I give the best expression of this grape at this point in time with this crop that I've got in the glass. If you think that they're not allowed to use fertilisers, they're not allowed to use irrigation. They're not allowed to use sulphites. They're allowed to use only the grape; it becomes a lot more tricky because youre not allowed to use adjustments. So what happens if you know what you're doing, and if you are an experienced wine maker, and you've got a good understanding of what you're doing, you can turn the grape into an outstanding wine. To me the frisante, the one we had the other night, and also you had the rose as well.

I was going to bring the rose up because I lived in the south of France. So I feel like I love those light Provencal roses. And I was blown away by that rose. Can you buy a wine off the shelf here?

Absolutely. We give 30% discount. Because I want to encourage people, you've got some friends over instead of going to Dan Murphys. If you want to have something a little bit more. And the good thing about many natural wines is that they're not more expensive than the classic wines.

What is the geography and climate in Emilia-Romagna?

We've got flatland and hills. And so the soil can be different. You've got part of Emilia-Romagna that is also facing the sea. You've got already three dimension in the climate. Then you've got in general, summers are hot, springs are warm and a very like mellow heat. And winters are cold. So cold winters, hot summer, warm springs, it helps wine making. Basically when the grape grows, it is being exposed to certain qualities in the grape, being exposed to heat gives other, but when the heat is consistent, like in the Italian summer, that's when you get, you know, a good concentration of sugar and you can work with flavour. The interesting thing about climate in Italy is that from north to south you have so many different micro ecosystems. Its the variety of wine that Italy makes that is outstanding. France is the same.

Yes. I was going to say, and then I realize it's probably a mistake to say this, but I feel like New Zealand is becoming the same. I'm from New Zealand.

Where are you from?

From Christchurch. The Central Otago region can actually be surprisingly warm in the summer and they have the best stone fruit. Now they have all those really amazing Pinot noirs from Bannockburn and so on from Central Otago. And it's very cold there in the winter. So I think that's a really interesting idea.

The cold is a necessary condition for pinot noir. The only region that does very good pinot noir in Italy is the Trentino Alto Adige which is up where the Alps are. Because for example, if you go to south of Italy, no one's making Pinot noir because you need cold winters.

I don't really like the Australian Pinot Noirs apart from the Tasmanian ones. And I think Tasmania is quite similar to New Zealand in the climate as well. I am learning so much from you. It's all coming together.

It's true. Pinot noir from New Zealand is better to me than Pinot Noir. It's easy to drink the Australian Pinot Noir, the one from Mornington for example. And I think this is the reason why many customers like it. I have both. Because at the very beginning I used to have only the pinot noir from Italy. But it's quite a different style. It's full of cherry and it's got oakiness and a bit of spice too. Which is what do Italians expect from a pinot noir from Italy.But when a customer is used to something and was expecting something different then I've learned that they are expecting the pinot noir from Mornington, which doesn't have any oakness, doesn't have any spice.

It's like a juice.

True. That's what it is. It's light and a bit fruity and very easy to drink, not very structured, so it makes it easy to drink. That's why they like it. So now I have both, but that's why I agree with you, a pinot noir from New Zealand is a lot more interesting than one from Mornington. But yes, New Zealand is doing quite well with wines too.

They've come a long way, I think in many areas.

Well it seems that New Zealand for agriculture is more ahead than Australia. Australia is still a lot about like intense farming, I did farm work to get the working holiday visa. So I remember I had a lot of conversations with farmers.

And how have things changed here at OGI now it has become more of a restaurant than an espresso bar?

I wanted to venture into a full restaurant because of two reasons: I love coffee. That's been my first love, I would say. But then when I go out and eat in other restaurants I always thought, I can do this. I've got the understanding. I just needed the people and when I met Gabriele, because Gabriele the chef used to be one of my customers. He used to work at Caf Latte and Cafe Cucina. He is the classic Italian chef that fuels himself from caffeine, and he wanted an Italian espresso. I remember him coming here every morning before work and always stopping here, always having two espressos, very classic of the chef. I got to know him and I thought, he's such a lovely guy. Other chefs can be very edgy, they drink, they do drugs. I work with a lot of chefs and to find one chef that has a really stable agreeable personality. I was impressed with Gabriele had a huge passion for what he does. And you can find that in other chefs, but also he is a nice guy. The chance to work together came just when the pandemic started, because all the restaurants, the classic restaurant had to close down.We were open because we were pumping out coffee. He said he didnt want to stay home for the next year or so, not that we knew how long we were staying shut for, but he said he wanted to do stuff. I said, well, why don't you come here? He said he preferred to do dinners because we do better stuff and I said, that's exactly what I want to do, so how about you come and work with us and then if you like it, well work together on something. In the meantime, I got to know his family because his mum came here and his partner and two years ago during the pandemic they had a baby as well. He lives around here. I thought, we can get along together and do something together.

It's lovely. There's such a nice feel amongst your team. It feels like family because you all know each other so well and you clearly all love what you do and you care about the diners experience and that, I mean, that really comes through and I think people forget what hospitality is. I think that the diners have a role to play as well in being kind and appreciative.

The diners actually reflect a lot of your personality. If they see that you're passionate, if they see that you're striving to deliver a good experience because it's not just about food. I think good food, good wine, good coffee, it's just a starting point. Without the experience that you are delivering, it's not enough. It's about how people feel as well. I always like to talk about the stories behind the espresso, the pasta, the natural wines. I always love to talk about these things because I want them to understand that there's a specific philosophy. I really would like in the future, to work on communicating the fact that we really want to promote sustainability and artisanality in what we do. Because that's what I believe is the future. The reason I like natural wine is not only because of the flavour that you might have in the glass that as we were talking about before, sometimes you find wine that, you know, people love, and sometimes I've got some wines that people would taste them and say, geez, what is that? That wine is a bit too extreme. I like those too. But I'm conscious that not everybody likes them. But what I like about them is the philosophy that's behind them. There's no intensive farming. There's no use of chemicals. There's no big commercial logics behind them. They work really hard. I saw the way they work in biodynamic winemaking, for example, where my sister-in-law works, it's very hard work. It's easier to use mechanical equipment. All the grapes are harvested by hand. There's a lot of work. I like to think that what I do here promotes what they do and also supports them. Hence, the cheese from my former neighbour, the wine from my sister-in-law. Victoria, Melbourne are an incredibly good place to promote these things.

I like to tell these stories to the customers so they're aware that Im not just giving you this and that, there's a reason why I give you this and that. But at the same time, the experience – you probably noticed how in the past five years, the experience in many Melbourne restaurant went down a lot, for many reasons. But I remember up to five years ago, before the pandemic, I used to go out at least three times a week. Now it's enough, if I go once because most of the time when I go out, the experience is cold. You have staff that it seems that you're doing them a favour to be there. There's no passion. There's a concept, yes, there's branding. There are all these elements that make you think, oh yeah, this is cool.But when it comes to the human interaction, I got left with a bit of a Hmm. So now I go out maybe once a week, sometimes not even once a week. We have a lot of conversations with the staff about how you should talk to the customer, what the customer wants to see here.You are going to make them feel good. The metaphor that I always use when I explain, especially to the new staff, is that this sector is about trading energy. You don't trade products, you really trade energy. Because if you manage to get someone walking in the door in the morning that is grumpy, that is upset about something – you never know what's going on in other people's lives – but if with your interaction you manage to have other people walking out with a smile, that's all it is in this sector. Sometimes I would serve a coffee that is not as good as this one, but what I care about it is that person walks out with a smile. That's all it is, but it's an element that got harder and harder to understand today for many operators.

Officina Gastronomica Italiana, 532-534 Malvern Road, Prahran