Matt started talking pretty much as soon as I walked in to Mr . His enthusiasm is contagious and talking to him feels like a really fun ride through a whole lot of Sicilian-Melbourne history with a mouth-watering run-down of the delights of his restaurant thrown in for good measure.
Matt, coming out of the kitchen: I’ve just been giving the boys the low down on this weekend’s tomato day.
It sounds like it’s going to be a really fun day. I did a passata day with some people in the countryside a few years ago and I love what a great community thing it is to do.
The PR people were telling us to ticket the event but I said, you know, it’s like a family thing and I want it to be free. If you ticket it, it takes the romance out of it being family oriented. I want it to be like, come on into my house and help me make tomatoes. Last year I was giving everyone homemade vino, so maybe that will be floating round again, we’ll see how we go.
That’s the whole idea of Mr Ottorino, isn’t it? It’s about coming into your house.
The whole idea of this restaurant came about because, well I had been at Grossi Florentino’s and I had got a job in Macao at the St Regis and I had applied for my visa. Then I got a bit of perspective from my friend who said to me, you’re leaving Florentino’s because you want to do your own thing and do food that you want to do and that means something to you, but if you go to Macao, you’ll be doing the same thing. You don’t need to do that, you can do what you want now. The world is your oyster. I felt guilty because I had already signed a contract, I had a few restless nights and didn’t get much sleep. I still don’t get much sleep, being a business owner. But I thought, I don’t want to go and do that, I want to open a restaurant.
I knew the style of food I wanted to do but I had a whole giant mind full of ideas and I didn’t know how to pinpoint it so I started looking for venues. I believe the style of food you do has to match the building. You know, I don’t believe you could do Chinese food in this building, because it doesn’t match. I came to this building and had a really good vibe because my grandfather, Ottorino Pace, came here in 1958 with his wife and daughter, my mother, and then he remarried and kids here, but they grew up in an old Victorian style building very similar to this one so I got feelings of home from it. But I’m classically trained and I have a lot of influence through my dad and through my Nonna, and my Nonna from my mum’s side in the whole cooking scene.
So this whole building is basically vintage style food with a little bit of a modern kick to it because I felt that it was good to do the whole traditional side of things but at the same time I like to put a bit of my own touch on things; my perspective of how things are. So some dishes, like my melanzana parmigiana is my Nonna’s style, I don’t put any mozzarella in it, I use mollica di pane, or toasted breadcrumbs, and it’s got oil and oregano. It’s Sicilian style so really thin, peeled slices of eggplant and passata. It is cooked for a very long time. It is an easy ting to eat rather than being thick and spongy. It’s a piece of delicious melanzana.
We do my Nonna’s rice stuffed chicken. Traditionally she does it for Christmas, but I thought I’d put it on as one of my own dishes and it has become a signature dish. It’s rice-stuffed chicken that has been tunnel boned and I roast it to order and all the rice that’s inside it soaks up all the juices and it’s really delicious. At the bottom of the pan you get all the stuck bits of rice and that’s the best part. That goes on the plate and you eat that as well. We also do baked cod with a sauce with almonds that I came up with from, which is inspired by a sauce from Trapani where they do an almond and tomato pesto. It’s served with my own handmade couscous. It’s a modern-ish dish using almond, milk, verjus and anchovy. I blend that up and make a delicious sauce to go with the fish and that’s a little bit modern, so it’s using old technique and new technique.
You’re very lucky because you have been classically trained, but you also have all that wealth of background knowledge from your Nonna and family. Obviously you are very passionate about it.
I don’t look at cooking the way a lot of people do. Nowadays you get a lot of young chefs coming up through the ranks and they are all about…now I get the whole organic thing and I am all for it and for sustainable fishing. I only ever get grass fed beef. I think grain fed is a little bit mean. It’s not what they are supposed to be eating , so I think that is unethical. Grass fed, roaming around the paddock is great. I have come from a family where food is family. That’s where I think I’m a little bit different. We’re Italians and like most Europeans, we are very food oriented. For example, I will cook soup on a day I feel sad because it’s something that makes me feel good. The food I’m cooking is an expression of my emotions. That sounds clichéd and corny, but that’s how it is.
I totally get it. I love that.
It is a difficult thing to put into words, but cooking is emotional for me. When I’m cooking something and a smell a certain smell, I say to the guys, can you smell that? Your nose receptors activate your memories. I cook something and it smells like a memory from my childhood and it’s amazing and to give that to a customer and for the to appreciate that is a beautiful thing. It’s hard work owning a business and I do 90 hour weeks.
It is a difficult thing to put into words, but cooking is emotional for me.
I can’t imagine you being stressed though. You seem so enthusiastic.
I am stressed but at the same time you need to have energy for the team. If you’re depressed and sad and stressed out then it comes out in your food and that’s part of my philosophy; what you feel is what you cook. But also you pas on stress to your team. I love pressure. That’s what we thrive on in the kitchen but I want my team to feel the same way I feel when I’m cooking. If you get people coming through who are from an Australian background and who don’t have the Italian background I have, when we do Tomato Day, it’s a big deal for us, and Australians can get involved with it, which is beautiful but it’s hard to understand if you haven’t grown up with it.
I feel jealous of that and wish I was part of that whole sharing of knowledge and passing it down and bottling the flavour.
That’s what it means to be Italian. Our doors are always open; we don’t hide it, we share our secrets. Although we do have secrets that Nonna has said are only for the family. But mostly we open our arms. The way my Nonni cook is a dying art. I want to learn everything my Nonni know and really hold that tradition.
Have they come and eaten your food?
Yeah, they pick on it. My Nonna is 87 now so she hasn’t been in a lot but she came in and ate and she’s just happy I’m doing my own thing and she’s proud of me. She came from a time and place when they had to walk to the well to bring water back and wash their clothes in the aqueduct which is still there in our town. We are very lucky that they took those massive risks in the fifties and sixties to come out here, otherwise we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing and I probably wouldn’t even be here. I don’t know if I would do it. You need a lot of guts to drop everything and come out here.
Well you were going to go to Macao, plus you have opened your own business in Melbourne, which is a pretty tough town. I think you’ve got guts. Do you think it is a tough town?
Melbourne is a really tough town. There are two types of restaurants; there are restaurants that are like gunpowder and you light them and they go up straight away but then it burns out and then you have others more like a candle where you light them and you let them burn slowly and as the wick burns down, they get stronger. I think we are like those restaurants. We’re a slow burner but we’ll be here for a long time.
You’ve been open two years?
Yes, two years. People love the food and we have lots of regulars.
To my shame, I have some past here so many times and thought about coming in, and I only just came in two weeks ago and sat up in the balcony room and I loved what I ate.
Great, but it is a hard town. There are things that affect small businesses, like Uber Eats. They affect us a lot because people wonder why they would eat out when they can just order in. But it’s the whole atmosphere and experience! I know. You and I get that but a lot of people especially in this area would rather just get Uber Eats. I think there is a lot wrong with Uber Eats. I get that people love it but we are trying to create healthier lifestyles for people but we are becoming so lazy. I also think people should be going out and shopping and making their own food. Uber Eats should be a once a fortnight thing but I think it’s a daily thing for some people.
I think eating out should be a once a fortnight or even once a week thing.
Or twice a week. We’re not a one off place. We’re not a Vue de Monde place. We’re an Italian cucina making pasta every day , making our own preserves…I’ve made a smoker outside and smoke the sausages. We make our own bacon and ham.
We have just started opening for breakfast and I’m making Impanata which is a Sicilian style calzone. I’m doing that with spinach and poached egg and baking it. We are doing our own coffee cured trout. I try and do everything by hand. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. I even make my own tomato sauce by hand. I think it’s too easy to ring up and say, can I get a side of bacon. That becomes fast food. Buying a pot of yoghurt is technically fast food. I even make my own yoghurt here.
You are setting high standards.
There is more beauty in doing it yourself. Even if it fails, it’s a trial and you can do it again. I’m a traditionalist. It just tastes better.
Did you know you were going to be a chef right from when you were little? It sounds as though you did.
Well I’ve given you the whole story of my family. They are really food oriented. We want to write a book. I already have some recipes written down and now I have to put it all together. My grandfather came over her and he is a pastry chef. Actually he was told by PietroGrossi, Guy Grossi’s father, because they were friends in Rome and Guy Grossi’s father was a chef as well and he told him to come to Australia, the land of opportunity. My grandfather had a pastry shop in Rome, came over here, fell in love with it, went back there and sold the pastry shop and came back here and continued to do his pastries. He was one of the first to do gelati in Melbourne, possibly in Australia. We had a pastry shop called Pasticceria Pace which was where Brunetti’s is now. Pietro Brunetti was my grandfather’s apprentice.
You’re like Melbourne royalty.
My grandfather is. My step-grandmother had a pancake shop in Lygon Court and my grandfather had the pastry shop next door and they didn’t like each other to start with and then they ended up falling in love and opening a gelati shop, Casa del Gelato, which is on the corner and opened in 1980; the original gelati shop.
So you had to be a chef really.
Food has been around me all my life. When I wanted to be a chef, I went to Guy Grossi. I was at the RACV club to start with and then I got the job at Florentino’s and I was there for 11 years. I was a young boy and guy took me under his wing and I was there for a long time. I went from being the shit kicker to running the grill. I went so many places with Guy. I did Iron Chef with him, we went on Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday. Guy was a great mentor to me. The way I’m running the restaurant now, I often think, “what would Guy do now?” Guy has come in a few times and we’re still friends, it’s good. It’s all pretty great.
122 Johnston Street, Fitzroy