When I announced to Daniele that I would be recording our conversation so that I could type it up later AND that I would need a photo of him, he looked like someone who had been told I would be stealing his soul. I like to think that Daniele’s enjoyment of the conversation steadily improved as we went on and that there was no soul-stealing involved. For my part, I relished every minute and learned a lot about Italian food, the possibilities of Italo-Asian fusion and about the head chef of Tipico.
Thank you for talking to me today, Daniele.
My pleasure.
How long have you been at Tipico now?
Nine months. The time is going a bit too quickly.
Did you come back to Australia specifically to work with Andrea having worked with him before?
Yes, more or less. I was working for another company and after six years, I wanted a change. I went back to Italy on holiday then Andrea told me he was opening his restaurant so I jumped on board.
What part of Italy are you from?
Milano.
What kind of food did you grow up eating there?
I grew up eating a lot of meat, many smallgoods and really rich flavours because my grandmother is from Valtellina, so pretty much from the mountains. I grew up with polenta, bresaola, a lot of red meat and pork as well.
Often it can be because chefs have mothers or grandmothers who are really great cooks and that makes them want to become chefs. It sounds as though your grandmother had a lot of influence on what you ate, did you always know that you wanted to be a chef?
Not really. But after I started helping my grandmother make fresh pasta and started cooking and spending time with her. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my mother because my mother and father were always working. When my grandmother cooked, she always gave me something to taste and made it really interesting to me. That’s why I chose to go to a hospitality school in Italy and I got a diploma and then started traveling in Italy and then I came to Australia.
How long have you been a chef?
I was at school in 2006, so pretty much 13 years. When I was still at school I used to work holidays and weekends.
What is it about hospitality and being a chef that appeals to you? It’s a hard job but you’ve stayed in it?
You need to have passion, otherwise you can’t make it in this kind of job. I like cooking and making other people happy with what I cook.
It’s the ultimate, isn’t it?
When you make other people happy, it gives you more energy and power to keep on going. That’s what made me become a chef.
When you were learning to become a chef in Italy, what is the training like? A lot of chefs here talk about classical French training, but it wouldn’t have been French for you?
It’s pretty much the same techniques and the same ways. For me, I was only interested in Italian food, I wasn’t looking at French or Asian food. But when I came to Australia, it opened my mind. Even the company I used to work for, owned Asian restaurants and so I started cooking Asian food. It’s hard to say as an Italian, but now I would prefer Asian food over Italian food.
Wow. That’s a big change, isn’t it?
It has a really good flavour.
What would your grandmother say?
That’s a good question. I don’t want to go there. I think she would be quite upset.
Oh dear. When you said you travelled around Italy, I know that in a country like Italy the style of food changes from region to region and even from town to town. Were there things you learned even within your own country?
Yes. When I was at school and my grandmother was teaching me, I was looking at meat and heavy rich flavours. When I started travelling around Italy, I began in the south and my first head chef started teaching me how to cook and handle seafood and many agrumes (citrus fruit), like lemons, limes, and oranges, so matching seafood to fruit. So it was light and a fresher kind of cuisine.
I think it’s changing now, but on this side of the world, we tend to think that all Italian food is the same. We probably think that about any country’s cuisine.
You think it’s the same, but it is completely different. In Italy we have pretty much any kind of food you would like from seafood to meat to poultry and vegetarian food, everything.
You need to have passion, otherwise you can’t make it in this kind of job. I like cooking and making other people happy with what I cook. When you make other people happy, it gives you more energy and power to keep on going. That’s what made me become a chef.
A traditional Italian meal would have a series of courses, but we don’t tend to do that here when we go out for Italian. We don’t have the appetiser then the pasta and then the main because it feels too much. To really experience your food, should we be following the Italian way? It’s a lot.
It’s a lot, but in Italy we don’t have a rich breakfast like you do in Australia. In Italy it is pretty much just coffee, a croissant and that’s it. Then we might have just a pasta or just a main for lunch. It’s pretty bad, but we eat a lot fo dinner.
If you really wanted someone to experience the ultimate Italian meal, what would that be?
Pretty much a full meal; appetiser, pasta and main, dessert…I can’t avoid dessert. It has to be small portions. People think that a plate of pasta is 200 grams of pasta plus the sauce is going to be 300 or 350 grams in one dish but it is supposed to be 70 to 80 grams of pasta and then a main.
So the idea is just a little bit of pasta for the flavour and then the main.
Yes. Just a little bit.
Do you have a favourite kind of pasta?
Hmmm. Honestly, I love spaghetti. It’s easy to eat. Old people and kids just pick it up with their hands.
Would you have sauce on it?
Oh yes, with a sauce. I would say beef ragu but it’s a bit too common, so I would say spaghetti with lobster. I love it.
Lobster. Do you do that here?
We have spanner crab here. We could do lobster.
And you eat it with your fingers, spaghetti?
Yeah.
I can’t even wear white when I am eating spaghetti and I imagine there would be an even bigger mess if I was using my fingers. Are Italians really tidy when they eat spaghetti?
We make a mess. If we are at a buffata with a lot to eat, we don’t care if we make a mess or get dirty, we are just having fun.
It’s a sign of a good time really.
If you go to a fine dining restaurant, you’re going to be careful how you eat and what you eat. It’s a different kind of enjoyment. I don’t enjoy that experience as much as eating with friends and having more fun. Fine dining is a good experience but I prefer something a bit more rustic.
Have you been a head chef before here?
Hmmm. Halfway. I was a sous chef but running a place.
It’s quite a big step, isn’t it? Even from sous chef to head chef? There are a lot of different things to think about.
Very much yes. It becomes quite tough to deal with the supplier, with the owners.
You’re the middle man, in a way. You have your kitchen staff to train up as well.
Yes, you have to trust them. Even when you have someone who knows how to work in the kicthen you need to bring them into the way you want to do things. It’s not that easy.
Other Melbourne chefs have said that it can be difficult to find good staff and keep them and that it can be expensive bringing on new people because of the time it takes to train them. There are a lot of considerations as head chef.
It’s not easy to find professional people these days. Especially, I am sad to say, that many Italians are coming over and saying they are Italian chefs, but they are not. They don’t know how to cook anything or maybe they just know how to cook simple pasta.
That’s disappointing.
A little bit. Once you get them in you can see straightaway if he is professional or not.
When you came into Tipico, did you start your own menu, or use what was there?
I used the menu from the chef who opened Tipico and then started swapping over some of the dishes. We still have some of the dishes from the beginning because they are pretty good, they are very good sellers. Slowly, slowly we have introduced other dishes.
Where do you get your ideas for the new dishes? Is it easy to come up with ideas for new menus?
Sometimes when I go to the market I see a product and I start thinking or I look at the internet and I get ideas. Different places a swell, I might see something and then I can modify it my way.
What do you think about fusion? Would you do Italian-Asian fusion?
Actually yes. We’ve got a special night Thursday night?
Oh! Of course you have, with Tokyo Tina. Where do you start with that?
It’s not that easy because there are different tastes in Asia. But the other company I used to work for own Asian restaurants so I tasted and started to understand Asian flavours; salty, sweet, sour, bitter. Then I have somehow matched that up with Italian food. It is not easy to explain.
It’s just magic.
It’s not magic. For example, on Thursday night we have spanner crab and prawn tortellini, so they are tending to the sweet part. I’ll serve it with a savoury stock, so bonito, kelp and soy. You match the sweetness to saltiness. You do the opposite. You can find a good balance. We will serve a Caprese on Thursday, which is a burrata with a balsamic reduction. We will use a buffalo that is a bit sweeter and serve it with chilli oil and soy sauce.
And there would be rice equivalents? Sticky rice and risotto? No?
You can mash it up. You can make kimchi arancini and put smoked buffalo in the middle.
OK, so I was on the right track?
It’s a good match. Even an Asian mushroom risotto. You have to try, taste it and give it a go.
Do you feel as though you always need to be challenged?
It is good having a routine but sometimes, maybe once a month, it is good to have a challenge that might help draw you out a bit more to do different things. I think that helps a lot. Otherwise if life gets a bit too much routine, it’s not nice to say, but it gets a bit boring. I know the customers are always different but the food you do id pretty much always the same so you have to do something different and new to make the customer happy and you more interested. You do have to keep challenging yourself.
When you have days off or time away from the kitchen here, do you cook?
No. I go out, or sometimes I even get UberEats.
No! You can’t say that.
Cooking five days a week lunch and dinner is a lot. If I have friends coming over I cook, otherwise, I relax and get lazy sometimes.
What would happen if you invited friends over and then ordered UberEats, what would their faces be like?
I would never do that. If friends come over, I have to cook.
When you’re eating other chef’s food, are you able to enjoy it or are you critiquing it?
I always critique and can be a bit ‘pinching’ about it. When I go out for dinner or lunch, it’s easier if I go out with colleagues who work in hospitality because if I go with someone outside hospitality, it’s good but sometimes if you start ‘pinching’ about too much salt or saying you would do it another way, they might not enjoy it so much.
That’s the nature of it, though, isn’t it? You have your standards for yourself, so of course you will be looking at things in that light.
Yes, maybe if I go out with a friend who is a mechanic, he will be looking at cars like that. But it’s not great to be eating with someone who is complaining about the food if you are not in that industry.
If someone comes to Tipico for dinner, what would you recommend? Do you have a dish you are really proud of and think everyone should try?
That’s a good question. I have a few dishes that are pretty good.
I’m sure they are all very good.
As a pasta, I recommend the spanner crab tagliolini, or if you want something a bit richer, the coteletta that we serve with pickled veges, or something a bit lighter and healthy, the spatchcock.
Perfect.
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