Daniele Piras

Hi Daniele, thank you for coming and meeting me on this rainy Melbourne day.

Thank you, I’m really happy to be here today.

I saw the post on @squidincbali about you and how you are going over to Bali to run that and I liked that Greg [Feck] or whoever runs that account did a little profile of you, so let’s start at the beginning. You’re originally from Sardinia, is that right?

Yes, I was born there in 1991. But my dad was in the army and we moved up to Treviso which is a little city close to Venice, literally five minutes away by train. 

I also read that you started cooking with your mother and grandmother.

They taught me a lot and I learned a lot from them. It is traditional in Italy every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, all the family gets together and we all cook together and we make fresh pasta and fresh sauce. There are about 10 to 12 people most of the time so it’s a bit of a mess in the kitchen but it’s a lot of fun. I started from there with knowing how to cook.

Were they Sardinian recipes? The food is different in every region, isn’t it?

Yes it is. And they were passing on mostly Sardinian dishes.

Which are what?

Sardinian food is really poor.

Lots of vegetables?

Lots of vegetables and a lot of potatoes. The best dish I always remember is a ricotta and potato ravioli with mint and plain tomato sugo and parmesan on top. That’s my favourite dish.

I don’t often think about potatoes in Italian cooking.

We use a lot of potato. Even in Naples they do a potato pasta with smoked cheese. Every region has a dish with potato.

Right and of course there’s gnocchi.

Gnocchi is potato, yes.

When your family moved to Venice, a lot of the food is seafood and fish?

Yes, in Venice it is mostly fish, more so than meat. It was really nice because I used to go to Venice a lot, at least every weekend with my friends and we used to have the best fish there. A plate of pasta was 8 euros, fresh and made with squid ink. Five minutes by train for a really good bowl of pasta; it was really nice.

I bet. Did you always think you would be a chef?

Not at all. I was actually a landscaper before I came to Australia. Totally different. I was still cooking for my brother when we would go home for a break: a bowl of pasta with some meat, but I was a landscaper, not a chef.

I was just trying to make a link between landscaping and cheffing, maybe the artistic nature.

Maybe…I use to grow rosemary and basil, that maybe helped. But there is not much connection.

So what happened to make you change careers?

I came to this country and as an Italian person from overseas, it’s hard to find a job as a landscaper. It was easy to go into hospitality and I thought I’d go into the kitchen because I had never done it. I was 18 and some people said it was a bit too late. I had never studied it but I had always cooked, so I was confident I could do it and from there I just started cooking and I never came out of the kitchen.

Did you do an apprenticeship?

I studied for two years at a cooking school in Melbourne. When I first came over when I was 18, I was in Sydney. 

Where was your first job?

It was a little place called Pure Italian in Balwyn with an Italian chef. It was really nice. It was quite challenging because the menu used to change every week. It was just written on the board and there were about eight or nine dishes. We used to prepare everything fresh every day and whatever we didn’t use we used to throw it out and make it again the day after. It was open for breakfast and lunch, that’s it. I learned a lot from him.

When did you join Vaporetto?

Three and a half years ago. I went there just to help. A friend of mine has a restaurant in Glenferrie Road, Cru, and he knew the place and knew Greg, and I was looking for a little job to help and he sent me there. I was happy to be a kitchen hand or anything to help. When Greg heard I was from Venice, he said I had to come into the kitchen. I started in the kitchen. 

I remember the first day I worked with him, he put me on the grill and he had this huge ribeye as a special and he told me to cook it medium rare. It was huge. So I cooked it, finished it, rested it and he carved it, looked at me and said, it’s perfect, I want you to have a job here, I want you to be a chef. So from there I was with him.

I love Vaporetto and I have written about it and spoken to Greg and I’ve read what other people have written about it and everyone loves it…is it true to Venetian food from your point of view?

Yes. It’s a bit more modern, because Venetian food is really old and sticks to the basics. Greg has changed it a bit, but in a good way, incorporating more good new things that people like. 

He’s a real thinker, isn’t he? He has lots of vision, I think.

For me he’s a creative chef. The menu he puts up is amazing. It’s a lot.

What’s your role there now?

I’m a chef de partie.

So you’ve learned a lot while you’ve been there.

A lot. That’s why I’m moving out to Bali as head chef.

How exciting. Would you have ever imagined that?

No. I’m really excited.

So it was an easy thing to say yes to?

Yes. I love challenges and I need challenges in my life.

I was reading how you and Greg are describing it and you are opening a Balinetian place in Bali and there are a lot of facets to that. So it’s a fusion of Balinese and Venetian food…what would that look like? What kind of dishes can people expect?

Balinese food has a lot of spices and in Venice we do have a lot of spices too. Our crudo at Vaporetto has chilli jam and fennel pollen, so it’s not just Venetian, it’s going to be a mix of both and incorporate both. Venetian food, I don’t really find it Italian because if you go to Dardinia, you would never think of using star anise in a pasta when in Bali they do. Venetian food is very similar to Asian cuisine, they use curry in pasta, cinnamon, it’s amazing.

Venice is on the spice route, isn’t it, which is why it has a lot of those exotic flavours.

Yes Marco Polo passed through when he travelled to go up to China and Japan. He brought through so many spices.

It’s interesting when you take something into another country. And the name, Squid Inc, with the spelling to reference Incorporated, that has an ethos behind it too, hasn’t it? Bringing people together. That’s a lovely idea.

I know. Working with Greg over the last three and a half to four years, his kitchen is a mix of people from around the world. My head chef is Malaysian, my sous chef is French Canadian, another guy is from Tasmania, I’m from Italy. One is from Nepal and one is from India, so when we do a special, it’s amazing because you have a lot to share and it’s beautiful. That’s what Squid Inc means; it incorporates every part of the world together and work together and mix ideas.

How lovely. I didn’t realise that in Venice you use a lot of squid ink, so that’s in pasta and risotto? What does that do? It colours it but does it give it a saltiness?

Squid Ink is quite salty and I find that it’s a bit acidic as well sometimes but it is salty so if you do a fish risotto with squid ink, you don’t need to add much salt because it is quite strong. 

It’s interesting because when I was down in Queenscliff with my partner, he pointed out squid ink stains on the wharves and jetties and I hadn’t realised that was what those black marks were. A lot of Greek and Asian fishermen catch squid down there and the ink is on the wood of the jetty.

It stains a lot. If it goes on your chef’s jacket, you need to wash it a few times.

Maybe that has its own meaning for the name; it’s there to stay.

For sure.

You’re stepping into the role of head chef. Do you feel ready for that?

I actually do. I do now. I took quite a long time to be ready because it’s not easy. Being a head chef you need to look after everyone and everyone in the kitchen has their own needs and you have to take them one by one and make everyone happy in their way. I think I can.

It’s definitely not just about food in that role. You have to think about food cost and the menu and, as you say, you have to think about your staff and also training and creating an environment.

Yes, bringing a team together.

You said before that you really like challenge and this is obviously the next step for you.

I can’t wait for it.

When do you go?

We are working that out. I think I’m going at the end of March, maybe the beginning of April. We are still deciding that. I think the site is going to open mid-April or the end of April.

Where is it in Bali?

Canggu.

It’s so cool there. I’d never been to Bali before and I went a couple of years ago. We stayed in Seminyak but went to Canggi on the back of motor bikes and I wished we had been staying there. 

Yes, Canggu is beautiful. 

And you are going to be living over there. What a lifestyle choice.

I come from an island so I love the sun. I need the sun, I need vitamin D and I’m not really getting much here.

Well, no, not in Melbourne at the moment. What is it about being a chef that you enjoy? It’s hard work and often long hours, but you made that change and you are following it though and going up the ladder, so what is it about being a chef that keeps you there?

If you don’t have passion, you can’t be a chef. If you don’t wake up in the morning and think, I’m really happy to go to work and do something good, it won't work…you need passion to be a chef. So even if you work seven days a week, if you have passion you will never complain about it.

Absolutely and where do you get your inspiration? Are you someone who looks at Instagram, do you have cookbooks, is it the people around you? Where are you getting your ideas?

One person who inspires me is Greg with his menus. As I’m Venetian he always asks me for translations and stuff. I’m always there when he makes new menus so I get inspired by him and how to associate ingredients together, plus he always buys me cookbooks and I read cookbooks.

Do you have a favourite cookbook or a favourite chef…apart from Greg?

I know many people wouldn’t like wat I’m saying, but I really like Gordon Ramsay. He’s a hard ass but he knows what he is doing. He has an empire and he hasn’t fallen yet so he is doing something right.

And apart from Italian cuisine, do you go and try other food and do you like a wide range of food or do you have a particular food you like?

I like Spanish food. Like a tapas situation.

What would be your advice to someone who was thinking about coming into the industry? What would you tell them? 

Be passionate, work hard. If you really want something, you need to work hard for it. Learn from the other people as well because you work with a lot of different people in a kitchen and the only think you can do is take everything and learn because everyone can inspire you no matter what. Just work hard.

Vaporetto

Rear 681 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn

Squid Inc.

C?anggu, Bali