The Australian chef explores the food markets of Rome

Chef Neil Perry knows just where to go in the Eternal City to find superb produce and, as Qantas creative director for all things culinary, he’s bringing his love of Italian cuisine to inflight menus.

Qantas chef Neil Perry at the Campo Di Fiori market, Rome. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

It‘s 9AM in Rome and Neil Perry is organising coffee and plates of pastries from “the sweet breakfast” menu at La Fiorentina for our small group.

This lovely café, with multicoloured sidewalk seating and waiters so busy they seem to be skating, is on via Andrea Doria in the Prati district near Vatican City.

We are fuelling up for a tour of the diagonally opposite Mercato Triofale food market led by the well-known Australian chef and restaurateur.

Some of us throw good sense to the summer breeze and succumb to Chantilly custard-filled maritozzo and croissants injected with pistachio cream. Alora! It’s time to move and Perry is advancing towards Mercato Triofale at a nimble pace.

We follow hard on his heels into the high-ceilinged hall of hundreds of stalls and collide with each other when Perry stops at an irresistible display of produce.

Inside the Campo Di Fiori market in the centre of Rome. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

His mission this late June morning is to demystify some of the quirks of local cuisine, highlight the “hero” ingredients, and pass on cooking and dining tips. We have been Perry’s fellow passengers to Rome on the recent Qantas inaugural direct flight from Perth and are in thrall to his lively narration.

His relationship with the national carrier stretches back to 1997, when he developed its Boeing-747 first-class inflight menus. His elevated role these days for Qantas is as creative director for food, beverage and service, but Perry could easily add culinary tour escort to that mix.

We quickly channel the enthusiasm of this “guide”, who believes that successive waves of Italian migration to Australia have added immeasurably to our multicultural cuisine.

A key message to take away from Perry’s enjoyable patter is that “seasonality is everything”, from truffles to melons. Add quality and provenance, from sun-warmed tomatoes and citrus fruit to olives and cheese.

And then there’s “knowing when to stop”. He says Italians are the world masters of “two or three ingredients” and mentions caco e pepe as a prime example of the wonderful simplicity of a good pasta sauce. “You just need pecorino, starchy water from the boiled pasta and lots of black pepper.” Hold that cream, basically.

Inside the Campo Di Fiori market in the centre of Rome. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

Perry’s a big fan of salumi and out come our notebooks to record his suggestion of where to taste Rome’s best – for the record, Roscoli Ristorante Salumeria on Rome’s via dei Giubbonari. And the best-quality olive oil is crucial to “everything”.

I almost lose the thread while swooning in front of a biscotteria piled with hand-created prodotto artigianale, such as cannoli Siciliana oozing with cream and ricotta.

Equally diverting are the pyramids of summer fruit with leaves and even branchy bits attached at Nuova Sabe di Sabatino Benito, where “category one” figs are a steal at €4 a kilo. The avocados and watermelons, in particular, are so huge as to appear artificial. Dark cherries glisten like Christmas tree baubles.

A man waves to us as he wheels his bicycle along one aisle with a perky Pomeranian in the front basket.

At a salumeria, the owner is practising juggling with knives and choppers, although thankfully safely behind his displays of polpette and messicano. He hams it up, as it were, for our cameras.

Perry says he develops more than 700 recipes a year for the Qantas premium cabins and airport lounges.

Inside the Campo Di Fiori market in the centre of Rome. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

There’s always an emphasis on local produce, but inspiration is an international commodity and he says he’s been a big fan of Italian cuisine and the local reverence for freshness since his first visit almost 40 years ago.

For the new thrice-weekly non-stop services between Perth and Rome (which originate in Sydney), he’s including Italian flavours on business, premium economy and economy menus, including pasta dishes, the types of snacks that are habitually served in Rome’s small bars, and Italian varietal wines. Buon appetito.

The writer travelled to Rome as a guest of Qantas.

The new Qantas Sydney-Perth-Sydney seasonal return service operates three times weekly between June and October.

The next schedule starts in June, 2023. With no international stopovers, the route shaves off about three hours from any equivalent flight to the Italian capital, taking 16 hours between Perth and Rome.