Beppi Polese, the godfather of Italian cuisine, dies at 90

One of Australia’s best-known restaurateurs, Sydney’s Beppi Polese, died yesterday after a brief illness. He was 90.

Beppi Polese pictured in the kitchen at his restaurant to promote Primo Italiano Festival.

One of Australia’s best-known restaurateurs, Sydney’s Beppi Polese, died yesterday after a brief illness. He was 90.

The restaurant to which he gave his name — Beppi’s, in East Sydney — turns 60 later this year, a rare achievement in such a transient industry.

Beppi’s came to fame the year Melbourne hosted the Olympics — 1956 — when the then editor of Sydney’s Daily Mirror, the late Charles Buttrose, was the first journalist to review the “new” Italian restaurant.

Over the years, Beppi’s became a favourite haunt of media power­brokers, including several generations of Packers, the Buttrose family and numerous ­celebrities, including Frank Sinatra, who ate there several times.

The restaurant, which has progressively been in the hands of Polese’s son Marc, became part of the city’s fabric. Disgraced former MP Craig Thomson used a union credit card to dine at Beppi’s, running up a bill of $1500 in 2007.

The son of a farm labourer, Polese came to Australia from the Veneto region of Italy in 1952, having been imprisoned in an Austrian labour camp during World War II.

He escaped from the camp and joined the partisan movement in the mountains of northern Italy’s Friuli region until Benito Mussolini’s defeat.

Four years after arriving, the restaurant bearing his name opened.

In 2006, Polese told the magazine of Restaurant and Catering Australia: “When you eat something, it’s a sensation for the palate. You must taste it. Flavour is the thing. That’s what it’s all about. And that’s why they keep coming back.”

One of Sydney’s other best-known Italian restaurateurs, Lucio Galletto, said last night: “I have always admired and ­respected Beppi as the godfather of Italian cuisine in Sydney.

“He shone a light on the dark ages of Italian restaurants in Sydney, opening the door for those of us who came later.”

Polese is survived by wife Norma, son Marc, daughter-in-law Sheena and grandchildren Luca, Nicolo and Mia.