Raffaele Pelligra

Hi, Raffa and welcome on the podcast. We’ve just been discussing how to say your name. Tell me your full name.

My full name is Raffaele Pelligra.

Where does that come from? What part of Italy?

I am from Sicily, a small town called Notto. It’s at the bottom, the most southern part of Italy, basically. It’s very close to the sea and very close to a lot of nature, a lot of vineyards, a lot of places that provide resources that shape the food culture in Sicily. For people who don’t know much about Sicily it is a place that has had so many different populations over history, as it’s in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. We had Normans, Arabs, Romans, Greek influences; all these different populations that shaped the culinary tradition of Sicily, which is considered a little bit like a fusion cuisine in its roots. Because of this, and I think that this is very interesting from my point of view, because I really like the idea of fusion cuisine. I really like the idea of mixing techniques, flavours, and ingredients and whatever you can find in this planet, to create something new, something different, something more interesting. I think it’s here in Melbourne as well. Since I arrived here, I realised and, of course, it’s just my point of view, but I realised that the Australian style is a very fusional style. It is very influenced by many different people from all over the world. They brought the culture, the food, and shaped a food scene that is very dynamic and creative. I think there is a little bit of a parallelism between my roots and where I am at the moment and the things that I’ve been experiencing in between.

It’s interesting that you say that, because I have the impression with, and I haven’t been to Sicily, I’ve been to Italy, but not Sicily, but that perhaps Sicilian or Italian chefs and people might be quite traditional in the way they cook. Are things changing or are you quite different to people from home in your view of bringing all the different cuisines together?

I think that, for sure in Italy in general, but I think, as well as in Southern Italy, that it can be a little bit more of a conservative type of society. I would say in general, when it comes to food, people can be very serious, very strict about food. When I’m travelling, people ask me, is that true that you Italian guys get mad if someone fucked up the carbonara or someone put pineapple on pizza? Yes, we do. Why are you so surprised? People from different cultures ask why we take it so seriously? Why is that important. This made me reflect. From an Italian perspective, it’s normal to religiously follow some sort of things, but then, why? At the end, the process of creating a dish is not something that was like this since forever, it never changed. The history of every dish is basically something that happened by mistake, that changed over time, based on necessity, scarcity of resources. So in the end, I think that this approach is very strict in a way. Sometimes it feels very limiting. It’s very rooted in tradition and it gives a very deep meaning to the food. It gives a very deep value, because somehow it’s such a part of your everyday life, whatever you have experienced, how you grew up, I would imagine. When grew up eating pizza in that little street food corner in your city, and then when you see a pizza with pineapple, I think it feels like emotional disrespect of how you grew up; you are attached to your comfort food. But I think that it’s a little bit limiting.

When you’re busy, especially when you’re in a very busy service, it’s so easy for your mind to enter that flow state. You are really focussed on what you’re doing. You are fully involved in that process so you don’t have time to think about anything else. It’s like a form of meditation or deep focus, that translates into the work. I think that is a very nice feeling when you’re completely focussed on doing something, and your mind is not going all over the place with random thoughts. In our society, now more than ever with all the social media, the short format content, and all the information that we receive, and the stimulation, our mind is never in a state of peace. We are constantly worried about something, reading about something, hearing about something, watching, scrolling. I found in this job, I found this beauty of working with your hands, doing something physical, not staying in front of a screen or waiting for calls and emails. You can focus on doing something and getting involved in that and giving your mind a little bit of a peace state. This is what I found beautiful too.

Raffaele Pelligra

Growing up, were you always interested in food and cooking? Were you cooking with your parents or grandparents?

What I really remember the most about those moments where I really got in touch with food in a deeper way when I was a kid, it was, especially during Christmas time, when all my family, the extended family, cousins, all your relatives come together. It feels like it’s not a day, it feels likea whole week or two weeks when your grandma’s house is still full of food, and people are still cooking and making things, and there is plenty of food. You still have the things from probably three days before because you cook so much, you couldn’t finish. In that sense, we are cooking a lot, but we are cooking a lot because the goal at the end, of course, is to eat well, but at the same time, it is to create that sense of space and community where all the family just spends a nice time together. I think that is something that shaped my view of the food as a medium for human connection and the human process of socialisation and community. And the second part is that my mum, my father, they weren’t really great cooks. They didn’t really pay that much attention to cooking. I realised that I was very curious about cooking and I was curious about creating dishes and having fun in that process of cooking and trying, tasting. I realised when I did that, that my food looked a little bit better than what my mum did yesterday. So, slowly, I started to also cook for them. I think is something that helped me in a way, because I know many of my friends who are the worst at cooking, are the ones that had an excellent mum as a cook. If you have a mum that cooks amazing food, and you never need to cook because your mum is going to cook for you. I think it was a lucky thing because it really motivated me to cook for my family, which is something that I really love when I’m back home. I rarely follow a recipe. It’s more like I go to the market, I buy the ingredients, I go home, and sometimes I have inspiration, sometimes I try stuff. Sometimes they are a little bit sceptical. Oh, why did you use this? What are these things? Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes they don’t like it, but I feel that it’s very interesting also to challenge the more traditional people who didn’t grew up in Melbourne or in New York or in a big city with all these fusion things and all these flavours. It is a very funny part of the process itself.

I’ve been following your Instagram. You’ve been travelling and cooking. Have you actually trained as a chef or have you just learned as you go?

My background isn’t culinary or a chef background. I studied digital innovation, social media, marketing, and a little bit about sociology of media. I have always been passionate about cooking and it was one of those interests that I wanted to grow. After I graduated, I decided to give that side of things a chance. Not in a strict sense of being a chef, going to culinary school. But since I studied all about changes in the industry, with social media, with the possibilities of how nowadays people experience food, I thought I’d explore that. I’ve always been passionate about travel, travelling, and so I decided to go travelling in Asia for seven months. While I was travelling, I got in touch with people and met locals and became friends with them, and then they would take me to try restaurants. I got to go into kitchens, and I would ask, do you mind if I just have a look at your kitchen or could you show me how to do this dish or can I cook with you? Most of the time, if you’re just kind to people, and imagine a Vietnamese or a Thai grandma who see this guy arriving and asking to learn their dishes, they are super happy to show me. I wouldn’t consider that as a training as a chef. It was just a way for me to stay active while travelling. When I finished my trip and I went back home, I was already planning to move to Australia on a working holiday visa. Before I did that, I went back to Sicily. I spent the last Italian summer there, and I had the opportunity to join a kitchen, but without being trained, but I joined that kitchen, basically, in a role that could be considered, like, a sous chef, which is very unusual. Someone that doesn’t have experience to join a kitchen in that important world position in that kitchen. There were other people around me that were guiding me a little bit, but I think that in general it was the scarcity of the employees’ availability in terms of kitchen. They had a chef who left and I was there and they asked, can you cook pasta? I knew how to do those dishes, but being inside the kitchen and running the operations and all the things, I didn’t have that experience. I had to learn like very quickly. But it was a very, very nice experience, a very interesting experience. Usually you start from the bottom position, you watch, you learn from people who are way more experienced and it takes time and there are no shortcuts in the culinary field. You can study, you can be motivated, but time, energy and effort is required to grow. From my point of view, it was the opposite, nobody was telling me if I was doing something wrong. I had more agency, more freedom, but in this way, I wasn’t getting the knowledge. But I still think it was like a very valuable experience because of learning different other skills, like, leadership and how to thrive in a fast-pace environment.

I was going to say, there is technique to learn, skills. But then in the heat of service and dockets coming up and the timing of everything. That must be really challenging as well. You can love cooking and you can learn all these different things, but then in the heat of service, it must be quite challenging. Do you like that feeling of adrenaline of service?

I think that I really like it because it’s like love and hate. In a sense that I think that when all the dockets are printed out, you have to really organise your time, doing multitasking, I think it’s something that I basically somehow do a little bit in my everyday life. I am used to multi-tasking. I think that I’m more used to that type of working process. But at the same time, it really raises your cortisol level, your stress hormones in a way that you may get nervous. You can easily get in a situation when maybe you made a mistake, you burn something, something is late and then you have to recover. But then you also get lost in time. So you’re in this situation where a lot of things can happen. The kitchen is a constant training in problem solving because there is always a problem. Sometimes it can be a technical problem. You run out of something, it can be an allergy, or a last minute request. It can be anything, and you have to solve that problem in the easiest way possible in the best way possible, trying to be professional at the same time. The second thing is, I think the mental aspect; your ability to keep your calm and keep your peace. I think that if you enter in this state of rushing and doing everything, you’re too nervous. It’s not positive activation. When you’re in that state, maybe you’re not working in the best way. Even if you finish service, I think you’re carrying stress and it’s not good overall. But I think if you learn how to relax a little bit, even under pressure, say, okay, I have a 100 things that have to go out. And I’m in this shit, probably. But I’ll do it, step by step. I’ll stop a few seconds, basically to breathe and then keep going. I think this is something that is very helpful because it allows you to do the job and do it in a more, relaxed way, even if it’s busy. The last thing that I really like about it is that when you’re busy, especially when you’re in a very busy service, it’s so easy for your mind to enter that flow state. You are really focussed on what you’re doing. You are fully involved in that process so you don’t have time to think about anything else. It’s like a form of meditation or deep focus, that translates into the work. I think that is a very nice feeling when you’re completely focussed on doing something, and your mind is not going all over the place with random thoughts. In our society, now more than ever with all the social media, the short format content, and all the information that we receive, and the stimulation, our mind is never in a state of peace. We are constantly worried about something, reading about something, hearing about something, watching, scrolling. I found in this job, I found this beauty of working with your hands, doing something physical, not staying in front of a screen or waiting for calls and emails. There is maybe also part of that for the management aspect of the job, but I think it’s still marginal compared to most of other jobs. You can focus on doing something and getting involved in that and giving your mind a little bit of a peace state. This is what I found beautiful too.

Why Melbourne? I know a lot of Europeans come to Australia and go to places like the Gold Coast because it’s so different to home. And Melbourne’s a big city. Why did you choose Melbourne?

I think that when it comes to a working holiday visa, there are so many different ways of approaching the Australian experience. Because Australia can be so many different things, it can be nature, surf, paradise, beach life and communities, people travelling and doing so many cool things, but it also gives you the opportunity to basically live in a big city and finding a job and living in more like a city life. I think that I was interested in living in a big city even though I think that I really prefer living in a small place near the beach. I like smaller towns. I like that quiet vibe, more than the city, but I like the fact that in the city you have so many opportunities in terms of food and restaurants. I moved to Melbourne because I researched a little bit and to me, it looked like the city in Australia that was creative. I read that Sydney is more corporate, you can generalise, but Melbourne was more creative in terms of the food industry, in terms of different arts, architecture design. I’m very interested in different forms of creativity in general. It was a nice idea to me to be part of this environment.

How’s it going? Are you enjoying all of that?

Yes it has been amazing, actually. I didn’t expect to do so much. It’s not even six months that I’m here. So, in such a short period, I have experienced a lot. I’ve worked in different restaurants, some of them for a month, or less than a month, but I’ve had the opportunity to see a lot of different perspectives. I’ve had the opportunity to work as a private chef here in the city and doing something that I’ve always wanted to do, cooking for people and designing a menu. I also love pop-ups, creative events, supper clubs. I really enjoy being a nomadic chef, in the sense of creating an event, playing with design, playing with social architecture. I think that Melbourne is an endless source of inspiration when it comes to this.

How did you get those private chef gigs?

Through an agency. I didn’t actively promote myself as a personal chef but I just put my information out there. I didn’t care about it. And then they called me randomly and it was very good opportunity. It’s a very interesting field as well. I think that for me now, of course, it’s difficult if you’re working full time. You end up working too much, sacrificing too much, and I think you also need a little bit of a balance as well.

That’s right. You’ve worked at some great places. Julie’s in Abbotsford Convent. It’s so beautiful over there. What a lovely part of town. And Shelanous, which is really fascinating to me. I haven’t been. It’s in Port Melbourne, but that’s a very experiential restaurant, isn’t it? Do you just take your CV along to places and say, I’ve got this experience, can I join or did they have openings?

I usually do some research. I like to look at the restaurant and learn a little, read the menu, see what they do. Sometimes I see restaurants on Seek, or I just go there in person and I say, okay, are you looking for a chef? Sometimes it’s through friends, I don’t know which one works the best. It’s very nice here in Melbourne because there are so many places. The more you try, the more it is possible that you’ll get inside the kitchen and experience it.

What’s the plan moving forward? Do you need to have a plan? Have you got a plan?

I think my plan is more a vision. I realised that the plan changed more than I expected. I have an idea in my mind. I say, okay, I’m going to do this, this, this, and that. And then in my life something happened or I experienced something and then I, I just say, okay, you know what? I’m going to do this instead. My overall vision is to keep developing. I think that I have so much to learn when it comes to food, cooking, techniques, every aspect. My goal for now is to learn, to keep practising, keep working in different restaurants and experiencing different styles of cuisine, different approaches, and being more solid as a chef. But at the same time, I’m also still planning to travel a lot. One of my biggest goals is to be able to work as a chef and travel and create something with people that also has a social impact in a way. Because I think especially our generation everybody is facing some sort of isolation, people are losing a little bit the sense of community, the sense of having a group of people enjoying life and creating something valuable. I think that food is one of the best ways for creating that sense of hospitality, the sense of being welcomed and enjoying something. My idea is always to create something that is interactive, not only food, but it should be something more.

Is there a food here, an ingredient or a dish or something that really surprised you? Have you found exotic things here in Melbourne or Australia that you hadn’t come across before?

Definitely. I haven’t tried aboriginal kind of dishes or ingredients, native ingredients from Australia. I haven’t tried much of that. I’ve only tried kangaroo meat, but it wasn’t something that really impressed me. It is a red meat at the end of the day. But I’ve tried so many combinations of ingredients, especially Asian food, which I really like to eat, but also Italian or Middle Eastern food with some flavours that maybe are not completely traditional, they have a little twist. I like that this openness to different cuisines is very normalised by the customers. People are used to eating fusion things. One thing that I ate recently was a pizza with bonito bechamel, and raw tuna, and another pizza that was like a cacio e pepe, with these crispy potatoes from a pizzeria that opened in Carlton recently. The dough was very nice and everything, but the texture and the flavours was something that I’ve never tried on top of a pizza. And I was like, that’s very interesting. In Italy, if you did something like this, people say, what is this? But when you approach it with a little bit more openness, it is a completely different way to experience this ingredient. It allows creativity to flow and it is very valuable.

Do you keep notebooks or diaries ordo you record your inspiration through social media?

I mostly take pictures of almost every dish that I do. I like to take very detailed pictures. I realise that this is probably not the best way to remember some things because sometimes you do something and say, okay, I’ll know, but then you don’t remember exactly what you did. I’m not very analytical in the way I usually do my thing. I’ll do a recipe, but I will never do it again. Maybe it was amazing, but probably it’s lost for good.

Thank you. Keep posting on Instagram because you’ve got a very honest and generous way of sharing your thoughts and adventures.

@raffaontheway