Top chef Giovanni Pilu declares Sydney Italian cuisine capital
Italian cuisine is having its “official renaissance” with an award-winning chef declaring Sydney now the world’s go-to city. So much so, the coveted delicious.100 list features a record number of Italian restaurants in 2019.
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Forget Rome, Sicily and even the birthplace of pizza — Naples.
According to one of Sydney’s most decorated chefs, the Harbour City has now surpassed even his home country and is officially the go-to city for the best Italian food in the world.
Fanned by a imaginative young chefs and thanks largely to Australia’s world-class seasonal produce, Italian is having its “official renaissance” according to Sardinian-born Giovanni Pilu of iconic Freshwater eatery Pilu.
The award-winning chef, whose Northern Beaches restaurant is one of a record 22 Italian eateries named in this year’s Delicious Top 100, said he believes Sydney has evolved into the epicentre of Italian cuisine and is adamant the city stands alone.
“And it’s something my patrons also tell me all the time,” Pilu, who relocated from Sardinia to the Northern beaches as bright-eyed 20-year-old back in 1992 with now-wife and restaurant co-owner Marilyn Annecchini, told The Sunday Telegraph.
“When I first arrived there were maybe three or four great Italian restaurants … Buon Ricardo, Beppi’s, Lucio’s … you know.
“The food was that traditional post-war cuisine — spaghetti meatballs, bolognese.
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“But now there is a whole new world of simple but modern Italian dining that has opened up … places like Ormeggio at The Spit, LuMi (at Darling Harbour), the pasta at A’Tavola in Darlnghurst.
“They have literally changed the perception of Italian food around the world and people always say to me: ‘Giovanni I just came back from Italy and the food here is so much better’.
“And it’s 100 per cent true.”
It’s a sentiment that Ormeggio head chef Alessadnro Pavoni agrees with and believes the once-mighty food cities of Italy are now victims of the tourist market.
Pavoni, who is widely credited with leading the “modern Italian” revolution when he arrived in Sydney 20 years ago, believes the city has also benefited from a wave of ex-pat Italian chefs.
“The best chefs Italian chefs don’t work in Italy … they come here,” Pavoni said.
“The chefs in Italian kitchens are generally from North Africa and the food designed to cater to tourists.”
Interestingly Pavoni believes the “modern” movement he helped create has “gone as far as it can go” and said his next venture will be a return to old-school traditional Italian.
“I think it’s time to go back,” Pavoni, who declined to reveal when the restaurant would open said, but added “It will be things like green tagliatelle bolognese with ragu simmered for 18 hours … things like that.
“Traditional food done the way it should be.”
Pilu, too, has recently made somewhat of a return to traditional Italian, adding to his menu a cult pasta dish with its origins high in the mountains of his homeland Sardinia.
Pilu’s filindeu with lamb shoulder ragu and Pecorino — hearty concoction constructed at the table, includes a special type of ‘filindeu’ pasta made by one of only two women in the world — Paola Abraini — with the skill to make it.
“It took me months to track her down and I tried to learn to make it myself but I couldn’t do it,” Pilu said.
“It just kept breaking. I realised for me to master would take years and years.
“So I decide I jut have to import it here.”
Translated into “golden threads”, the filindeu is served dry in a bowl and then doused with a consomme and pecorino cheese at the table.
Because of the thinness of the pasta, the dish cooks and is ready to eat within one minute.
“You have pasta, some vegetables, you pour over the stock and stir and voila,” Pilu said.
The Delicious Top 100 Restaurants will be announced in next week’s Sunday Telegraph.