What an absolute delight to have my 300th Conversation with a chef with Salvatore Giorgio at La Vetta at Marnong Estate. I have been wanting to chat to Salvatore for a while now, ever since I met him at Bar Bambi in the city and this conversation was even better than I had hoped. Salvatore is a passionate chef who has been cooking since he was 11 years old. He grew up in a family of chefs with his father a pizza maker in Naples, a mother who prepared three to four courses every night for dinner and brothers and sisters and cousins who are also chefs. I was hanging off Salvatore's every word and there is so much gold in this conversation that I am just going to let it speak for itself.
Salvatore, you are my 300thconversation with a chef! And I am so happy to have the 300thconversation out here at this beautiful place. I loved coming out here for the launch night and eating your beautiful food. I first met you when you were at Bar Bambi, and I am interested to know how different is it cooking in a winery as opposed to cooking somewhere like Bar Bambi?
It is completely different. I went to Bar Bambi because of my good friend, Nick Russian. I was in Italy and he asked me to open it up and obviously that is more of a bar, nightclub which is very full on with a party atmosphere. Whereas here you have beautiful settings, with amazing views and much bigger challenges because we have so many businesses on the property.
That's right. There's La Vetta where we are which is fine dining and then Cucina.
Cucina 3064 is our more casual family friendly dining and we have a cafe where we can serve panini, pizza, focaccia and things like that so people can sit out on the grass. And then we have three wedding spaces as well. Next year we are planning on building out winery which will have a 25 seat private dining room next to the vineyards.
Ah, so you are really amongst the vines. That will be amazing. So you could potentially have three weddings running at the same time?
Sometimes we do have three weddings happening at the same time and that can be hectic and a bit stressful, but that's part of the game, I guess.
That's hundreds of people. That's one of the challenges of being a chef, but there are many pressure points for chefs. Do you get stressed in those situations or do you just love the buzz of it?
Honestly, I love the adrenaline, the stress it brings. For me it is not really a stressful job because I have been doing it since I was 11 years old.
11?
Yes. I started my first job when I was 11. I have worked with a lot of great owners and chefs and waiters and front of house staff. I have tried to be a sponge and absorb as much as I can from everyone and I have also tried to create my own thing. I guess the busier we are, it is an adrenaline rush. There is nothing like it. You try and push yourself every day to a new challenge. We are very organised in the kitchen. We use timers for everything. All the guys are fantastic in the kitchen. Sometimes I feel like I am the conductor and they are the musicians. We have more than 20 chefs working here and they are all fantastic. There is no I in team and I am very grateful for them.
I love that image of you as the conductor because I was thinking about how beautifully choreographed it isand everyone knows what they are doing. It is an open kitchen and a big one and there is a lot going on. They all need to have their way of moving in the space and their role to play.
I never wanted to be a chef who only knew the one thing, I wanted to know everything. Sometimes when we can pump out a meal in five minutes, I don't because I want the customers to have the experience. I want them to get their drinks and settle in. It is a 360 as a chef. You have to think of every aspect. Some of the guys ask how I thought of a certain thing. It is important that you think of everything so that you can give the customer the best experience.
All the guys are fantastic in the kitchen. Sometimes I feel like I am the conductor and they are the musicians. We have more than 20 chefs working here and they are all fantastic. There is no I in team and I am very grateful for them. ~ Salvatore Giorgio
One of my questions is usually, did you always know you wanted to be a chef, and you started at 11, so I guess you probably did.
My passions were soccer and cooking. Growing up as a kid, my mum was a stay home mum and I was there with my dad and brother and sister. She would be cooking from the morning all these amazing meals.
Has she got an Italian background?
Yes. We always had good food; we would have three or four courses every single night. We didn't have a Mercedes or anything like that, as my father said, we had our pantry and our fridge was better than anyone else's.My father would say that the most important meal was dinner. I remember as a kid, and I was very young, I was playing in the park with my friends and I came home five minutes late. My father punished me and sent me to my room and I didn't have anything to eat and he said, your mother is slaving in the kitchen every day and you have to appreciate it and respect her because she stays home all day to make sure you are fed well. I was never late for dinner ever again. It was very strict, military, because my father was in the army as well. He was a pizza maker in Naples so that is also where the passion came from. Food was a very serious thing in our household, from making salamis and tomato sauce and pickling vegetables and making fresh pastas. It was an everyday thing.
Did he teach you some things?
He taught me a lot of my pizza knowledge. My brother is a chef, my sister is a chef, I have cousins in Italy who are chefs. My brother-in-law is a pastry chef who works for Paul Bocuse who is the godfather of chefs, so you know, from a young age there was a lot of arguing in the kitchen at home because everyone wanted to outdo each other. But in the end, I was the best one, as my dad said. Of course, they instilled a lot of the cooking in me. When I cook, the greatest satisfaction is when the customer is happy. It is not about the money, because if it was about the money, I would have been a concreter or a builder or something. The greatest satisfaction is seeing the smile on the customer's face. That is the end result.
Let's go back to 11. Is that cooking at home?
No. My brother's godfather had a pizzeria/Italian restaurant in Torquay. I used to catch the bus by myself, 11 years old after school. My dad used to say, if you want a job, you have to get there yourself and show maturity. I appreciated that. When I finished at 10 or 11 o'clock, the pizza makers would drive me home. I was a prep boy cutting all the ingredients and whatnot. That was for the summer. From there my brother was an apprentice and so I would work in the kitchen helping. Back then, in 1998, you could leave school at 15 and 9 months. I left school at 14 and 9 months and worked full time as a chef. I was always destined to do it.
Have you always worked in Italian restaurants?
99%, yes. It is something that is a big passion for me. Italian food sort of got lost along the way. This is not a criticism of people or Italians but a lot of the Italians who came in the fifties and sixties saw an opportunity to open restaurants and congratulations to them. But things like Chicken Parmigiana and Spaghetti Bolognese dont exist in Italy. Parmigiana is eggplant and it is from Naples. Spaghetti Bolognese is an American dish. It is really tagliatelle. The other reason I wanted to strive to be a chef is that I want to educate customers. Italy is such a big area. You can cross regions, like we are in Mickleham and if we went to Greenvale, they would do the dish in a completely different way with a different name. Italian food in general is so unique and a lot of people think it is always lasagne, spaghetti, pizza, but there is so much more. It is phenomenal and endless.
Did you tend to stay in venues for a long period of time?
Whether it is a good or bad thing, and for me it was a good thing, but I tried to stay in a place no longer than 12 to 18 months because I wanted to learn, observe and move on. Some chefs stay in places for five or six years and thats all well and good, but for my education and knowledge, I wanted to absorb as much as I could. I did pizzas, I have done pastry, I have done baking, I have done fine dining and wineries and casual dining. I wanted to broaden my horizons. Even though I am Executive chef here, I am still on the tools. I work harder than everybody. I try to lead by example. You are only as good as your leader. My guys do an amazing job. They see how hard I work and if I ask them to do an extra hour, they don't bat an eyelid. They go to war for me every day.
I often ask these days about wellbeing because it is intense work, how do you manage that for you and your staff?
All my staff do the normal hours, but I push them a lot because I want them to be better than me. If they aren't that means I haven't done my job. I do a lot of the hours. At the moment, I do 90 hours a week, but I enjoy it. The adrenaline kicks in and you wake up and get into. I have been doing that for three months since I started. I won't have a day off until it is running like a well-oiled machine. It already is, but it is good being a perfectionist because you can never reach it.
The one thing I also love about cooking is teaching the guys. I want them to be better than me and better than a lot of chefs and that is where there is a very good respect between all of us. The team is fantastic and I can't thank them more.
I love hearing that. When I was out here for the launch you mentioned them as well, and thats so great. Some chefs can have a tendency to make it all about them but I know that you seem to have such a great appreciation and respect for your team.
Like I said, there's no I in team. All chefs have got egos. Any chef that doesn't say that is lying. I have an ego. But some chefs are insecure and they don't want to share recipes or they feel threatened. If I can share a recipe and teach someone how to make a dish, they have made my life a little less stressful. As an example, one of my pizza makers is a Nepalese guy, his name is Sujan and he is a good friend of mine as well. Thirteen years ago I taught him how to make pizza at +39 where I used to work. I left after two years and he managed it for ten years and I can tell you right now that he is probably better than any other Italian pizza makers in Melbourne. Now he is working back with me and it is a great satisfaction because he is phenomenal. That is why I get up in the morning to come to work. They work hard for me and they see that I care about them and it creates a really good culture.
We always had good food; we would have three or four courses every single night. We didn’t have a Mercedes or anything like that, as my father said, we had our pantry and our fridge was better than anyone else’s.My father would say that the most important meal was dinner. ~ Salvatore Giorgio
I loved hearing you say that you are always learning and that you have liked to be challenged throughout your career. I know that you were in Italy when Nick asked you to open Bar Bambi. Was going to Italy part of that need to change things up?
We went back to Italy for family reasons, me and my partner. We stayed for about a year and we did a bit of traveling and I did some little stages in little places. I think after doing it for so long I probably got a little stale. Italian food is so different than it is in Australia. Here, the customer not that they dictate too much but they want to change the pasta and things like that. From a customers point of view I can understand, but also you have to respect the craft as well. When I went back to Italy and I visited the Parmigiano factory where they do the cheese, the prosciutto Parma factory, the buffalo factories in Salerno, you see these families all following the same recipe. One of the factories I went to produce twelve wheels of Parmigiano a day, 72 a week. It was father, son, mother, daughter and they just do it. That is their livelihood. Then you think of all these little families and then they export to the world. I know they are trying to bring in a rule, which I am an advocate for, that Prosecco has to come from Italy and buffalo has to come from its region. I understand that Australia and America want to produce but having lived there and seen that is all they live for, I think we should respect that. If you want Parmigiano, it has to come from the region, the same with buffalo mozzarella and the same with prosciutto. They do something very simple, and they respect it, and I don't know that we respect it here to that extent. Thats what we are trying to do at La Vetta. We are not trying to reach three hats, one hat Id be happy, but it is good honest Italian food presented nicely, fresh and very simple. It is not molecular cuisine, it is good Italian food. When we say we use Parmigiano Reggiano, it is. That trip and coming back changed my mindset drastically.
Give me some examples of some of the dishes on the menu that you are proud of. I loved the 'Ndunderi with the pistachio pesto.
That's a dish from the Amalfi Coast that was invented about 900 years ago, made using leftover ricotta. The reason why I call it 'Ndunderi is because that is its original name. Some diners have said, oh it's ricotta gnocchi, yes, it looks like gnocchi, but I try and instil I into the customer that it is more than that. I like to educate the customer. As my father said, growing up, food is important, respect it. If I can reach out to 1% of the customers, then I have done my job.
I love that idea. I think it is good to know about the origins of these things and do things they way they should be done. It is so European. When I lived in France, I would have to sit back and wait to see how people ate certain things because there was always a way. Asparagus fresh in spring, they would tip up their plate on an upturned fork and make a little vinaigrette then pick up an asparagus spear with their fingers, dip it in the vinaigrette then eat it. You appreciate it and respect it.
Just a final question, what would your advice be to people who are thinking of becoming a chef?
If you want to become a chef, if you are watching MasterChef, don't do it, because I have never watched an episode in my life and I won't I find it fake. I think for television, if they want to do a show, get the real chefs out there that have been working in the industry and have worked on all those important days like Christmas, Valentine's Day, they have to work when their family members are sick, but they are still cooking because that is what they love. If you are still cooking, do it from your heart, don't do it because you have seen MasterChef and they win $200 000. That's not what cooking is about. That is glorified and it is good for the industry, but now everyone is a food critic. If you really want to be a chef and you are in the kitchen with your grandparents, if that is what you really want to do, do it 100%, but don't do it because people are on TV signing book deals because that is not what a chef is. We do it for something else.
2335 Mickleham Road, Mickleham