It’s an odd couple al fresco as a Godfather and an elder go bush

A renowned chef and Nyoongar-speaking elder became fast friends as they co-starred in Antonio Carluccio’s Six Seasons.

Richard Walley will star in a unique series, Antonio Carluccio’s Six Seasons, in which he and Italian-born cooking star Carluccio (of Two Greedy Italians fame) go around the southwest of WA and talk about culture, history and food. Picture: Marie Nirme.

Richard Walley has sold sandalwood scent to French perfumiers, played didgeridoo with legendary band Santana and danced twice in front of the Queen, yet he was particularly impressed to meet Antonio Carluccio, the godfather of Italian cooking and co-star of BBC TV’s Two Greedy Italians: “I was amazed how Antonio really gets and appreciates Aboriginal culture and what it stands for.”

The unlikely pair of renowned chef and respected Nyoongar-speaking elder who had never heard of him became fast friends as they co-starred in Antonio Carluccio’s Six Seasons, a six-part cooking series airing on SBS next week that is set in Western Australia’s verdant southwest.

On the first day of filming last year, Walley performed a Welcome to Country ceremony for his friend in the wildflower-strewn bush of Kings Park, overlooking Perth. He and son Olman revisited the site yesterday; Carluccio sent greetings from across the other side of the world as he prepares for the launch of his 23rd cookbook, Antonio Carluccio’s Vegetables.

“I knew something was touching me a lot because it reminded me of my childhood, living in the country and being happy,” Carluccio told The Weekend Australian from his home in London.

“Richard showed me that nothing is wasted, and his culture has a respect for nature that I think is lost in other places.”

It is three years on from the stark revelations in Carluccio’s 2012 autobiography A Recipe For Life, in which he admits the celebrity pressure of running a vast Carluccio’s restaurant chain had taken its toll in broken marriages, bouts of depression and even a clumsy suicide attempt.

Still, the white-haired septu­agenarian filmed walking with Walley through the karri forests and coastal heath of Australia’s southwest corner is clearly relishing life.

The pair go in search of new ingredients and old ways of eating. Native quandong fruit is “the peach of the woods”, he declares on camera, preparing his own version of duck a l’orange using wild duck, bush pepper, honey and quandong.

“There’s everything there, just pick it,” he says with delight.

Walley, whose Order of Australia is matched by Carluccio’s OBE, has appeared in documentaries about bush scents and consulted to French perfume companies and global mining companies.

He has played didgeridoo around the world, and led the ceremonial opening at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Perth in 2011.

But he and Carluccio agreed that making damper on coals in a forest bush camp was as good as it gets.

“I’ve never seen paradise but it looks a little like this,” mused Carluccio, who remembers hunting for truffles with his father in Italy’s Piedmont wilderness as a child.

Walley hopes his co-star’s fame will shine more light on Aboriginal culture — and maybe prompt ­another series — when Six Seasons goes to air on several European networks.

Carluccio hopes for more trips out bush if he returns.

“Richard is a fantastic human being. That was my first admiration for him.

“He stays anchored to the core of ideas of Aboriginal culture, and taking care of nature.”