The telling sign our world-famous eateries will bounce back
Melbourne’s lockdown took a hammer to the city’s crowning jewel. And yet, despite many fears things won’t return to normal for our eateries, many of us learnt on our first day of freedom that our favourite dishes are just as good as we remembered.
Food
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It’s one of the food world’s little ironies: the most popular takeaway food is actually pretty rubbish as a takeaway food.
Sure, myriad Melburnians celebrated getting through another seemingly never-ending lockdown week with a delivery from their local pizzeria, but for me, pizza should always be eaten as close as possible to the oven from which it came.
Certainly that’s the case for the Neapolitan style pizza that Johnny di Francesco introduced to Melbourne more than a decade ago when he opened 400 Gradi in East Brunswick.
And it’s his award-winning, world-beating margherita that I’ve been most craving during lockdown v 2.
Because this time around, we were truly spoiled for choice when it came to dining fine at home, thanks to the clever pivots and dogged determination of our best restaurants and tech-delivery platforms such as Providoor.
So I scratched my dumpling itch with a mod Asian banquet from Lucy Liu, feasted on rat pack-era Noo Yawk meatballs and vodka red sauce from Pepe’s Italian, long lunched luxuriously with Lake House and even Peking ducked thanks to David’s.
But a pizza? That’d been six months, I reckon.
And today’s was every bit as good as I remembered – and hoped. The acidic tang of the tomato, the creamy cuddle of melted mozzarella and the bright summery freshness of basil all on a base at once smoky and charry, airy and chewy. And undeniably delicious.
Of course, I could keep my glasses in the fridge at home, but I don’t and it’s that icy, frosted glass that makes a crisp beer taste even better with that first slice.
“It’s been a very long, long winter,” Di Franceso says. But you don’t build a chain of restaurants that stretches across Melbourne to the US and Middle East by sitting around waiting for things to change that you can’t.
So today’s first customers are greeted by workmen putting the finishing touches on a renewed, refurbished, revitalised dual spaced restaurant that now incorporates the Zero Gradi gelataria (that was a few doors down) and a glorious terrazzo central bar that will be the place to perch when we get to Covid normal.
For now, outdoor seating for 50 and 10 across the two spaces will do.
“We’d been planning this renovation for two years. So when we were shut down again, I said to my wife, when will we ever get the chance to do this?” di Francesco says.
And it’s this optimism, this considered risk-taking, taken by operators across the city and state that will see our world-famous industry bounce back – perhaps even better than ever.
For it’s not just me who missed pizza. On Tuesday, the team took 1300 reservations across three restaurants.
It’s been a long winter, for sure, but these first steps into a spring where we might be masked up but can sit down at our favourite local really are a slice of heaven.
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