Families, fights and flying dough: The pizza place where Melbourne grew up

The first pizzas in Melbourne did not come from the kitchen at Papa Gino’s on Lygon Street – that honour goes to the now-closed Toto’s, which sat two blocks to the south.

“When dad was opening Papa Gino’s, Toto’s was going through a renovation,” explains Alex Brosca, the long-time proprietor of Papa Gino’s, along with his brothers.

Alex Brosca, left, and his brother Harry have just sold Papa Gino’s after 50 years at the helm.Credit: Joe Armao

“They were getting a new shopfront, and dad knew the boys. They just walked Toto’s old shopfront down the street and put it right there,” he said, pointing to the doorway that’s been accepting customers in this location since 1973.

“So we could rightly claim that the very first pizza in Melbourne came through that door.”

Alex and his brother Harry, who have been running Papa Gino’s with their family since their father Gino Brosca died in 1988, are part of the living history of Lygon Street – and the tradition of Italian-Australian food that has defined the strip for decades.

Harry Brosca pinning the dough base at Papa Gino’s in 2018.Credit: Josh Robenstone

Their parents moved to Australia from Italy in the 1960s, and their father started his hospitality career working as a waiter at Toto’s. Harry was only 12 when he joined him. “I got 80 cents an hour and a pizza,” he grins.

At 16, he dropped out of school to work full-time at the new family restaurant, Papa Gino’s. Alex came on board full-time a few years later. Both of them learned the style of pizza that Toto’s invented – a hybrid, taking what the owners remembered from Italy while using the ingredients they could find in Melbourne.

For over 50 years, the family pumped out pizzas and pasta in the wood-panelled and brick room to an intergenerational crowd. When I was a kid, my father used to take me and my brother to Papa Gino’s for capricciosa pizzas and tartufo ice-cream – it was nostalgic for him, too, having visited as a student when it was a uni hangout in the 1970s.

When I returned to Melbourne after years of living abroad, I brought my son to Papa Gino’s to give him a taste of my childhood and that specific style of capricciosa pizza you can’t find anywhere else in the world.

“This is Melbourne-style pizza,” Harry says. “It is unique to us.”

The restaurant fave: capricciosa pizza.Credit: Joe Armao

But now, after more than 50 years, the family has sold the business to long-time employees. Nothing will change, the brothers insist. Right now, they’re still on site helping with the transition.

“There will still be the pictures on the walls, the same decor, the same food,” Alex says. Even so, the departure of the Brosca family from Lygon Street feels like the end of an era.

We sit in the middle of the dining room at well-worn tables under the neon Papa Gino’s sign and dig into that capricciosa and linguine amatriciana, two of the most popular dishes, and talk about the good old days.

It was the boys who brought their dad to this particular location – it used to be a hamburger shop called Greeno’s.

“We used to knock around with the owner’s boys at the park down the road,” Alex says. “They mentioned their dad was getting out, and we told ’em our dad was looking, and that’s how he found the place.”

Papa Gino’s fast became a favourite hangout for uni students and families, and retained its popularity for decades. But COVID was rough on the business, and the neighbourhood has changed. The way people eat has changed. Everything has changed.

“Melbourne uni students used to have to come to Lygon Street to eat,” Alex says. “Now there are 100 restaurants between here and the university. Not to mention delivery.”

Still, the restaurant never lost its fan base, and the brothers estimate that around 70 per cent of the people who walk through the door are repeat customers.

Linguine amatriciana, another popular dish.Credit: Joe Armao

When I ask them if they have any special memories of the place, Harry’s face lights up. “The good old-fashioned fights,” he grins, his gap-toothed smile and massive frame emphasising how well-suited he likely was for such activities. “It was pretty rough here back in the ’80s.”

But as much as he misses the rowdy old days, he also misses the sense of community that used to exist in the neighbourhood, and the camaraderie that came with belonging.

“People used to eat here and we could send them next door for a gelato,” Harry says. “Now there’s a marijuana pharmacy next door – it’s not the same. Though I guess they might get the munchies and want some pizza.”

In some ways, things have come full circle in Carlton. We talk about how, across the street, the boys from the Sooshi Mango comedy troupe are leaning into nostalgia for ’70s and ’80s Carlton with the decor at their new restaurant Johnny, Vince and Sam’s, albeit taking cues from the Greek and Italian households of the era – lace tablecloths with plastic coverings, flowered carpets, rococo artwork – rather than the restaurants.

Harry Brosca inspects the damage after a soccer supporter threw a burning flag on top of the Papa Gino’s awning and burnt a hole in 2002.Credit: Simon Schluter

Around the corner on Grattan Street, Leonardo’s Pizza Palace leans into that era too, its interior a glammed-up version of Papa Gino’s wood-panelled walls covered in memorabilia.

I worry aloud that the old Carlton Italian culture – and its food – will go away if diners continue to migrate away from the classic joints towards the trendy newcomers. In 20 years, will you still be able to get a capricciosa pizza with shredded ham, or will it all be thinly shaved prosciutto?

“We’re one of the last ones on Lygon Street doing this,” Harry says. “People are putting rocket on their pizzas. Rocket’s a salad! Why are you putting a salad on your pizza?”

“People snub that,” Alex adds, nodding to the slice in Harry’s hand, piled high with shredded ham. “But I think it’s great.”

Indeed, the brothers have seen a massive change in the attitudes of customers in recent years.

“Ever since MasterChef came out, now everyone thinks they’re a master chef,” Alex sighs. “People complain: ‘You put cream in the carbonara.’ Well, yeah, that’s how we do it! We’re not trying to be fancy, or pretend we’re in Italy or New York. We’re in Melbourne, and that’s how mum always made it.”

Speaking of mum: The family matriarch, Silvana, worked in the kitchen well into her 80s.

“When she was 83, our sister had to take her to Fawkner hospital,” Alex says. “She had some kind of infection, and the doctor called my sister over and said, ‘Look, I think your mum’s a bit delirious, she’s telling me she’s still working in the kitchen at the restaurant.’ And she was! She only retired because she had a shoulder replacement.”

Now nearing 90, Silvana still lives independently nearby in the family home. The sons installed a mechanical chair lift for the staircase, but once she had her hip replaced, she declared it too slow and now refuses to use it, preferring the old-fashioned method of climbing.

As for Alex and Harry, they’re looking forward to some freedom. Both are keen to do some travelling, having spent their entire adult lives (and a good portion of Harry’s childhood) chained to the responsibility of the restaurant, never able to leave for more than a few days at a time. They’re especially excited about visiting Italy.

But they’ll miss Papa Gino’s – particularly the customers, who have come to feel like a second family.

“Just the other day we had someone come back, who had been living in Malaysia for the last 40-odd years,” Alex says, “and he walked in the place and said, ‘It hasn’t changed! I feel like I’ve come home!’”

Since word of the sale has gotten out, they’ve been inundated with emails and in-person testimonials, all with stories similar to my own: how people grew up in this restaurant, how it was their introduction to Lygon Street and Italian food, how they appreciate the fact that it has never changed.

“I like that,” Harry admits. “I like the compliments.”

I ask him what he’s going to do without them.

“Hopefully my wife will give me compliments,” he says, his gap-toothed grin showing all the warmth of a life spent in hospitality.

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