7 minute read
Up the ante
Antipasto is emblematic of a way of cooking and a way of eating, writes Madeline Woolway.
Antipasto has a knack for conjuring memories of family functions; plastic deli platters filled with chargrilled vegetables soaked in low-grade oil and vinegar, filmwrapped salami of unknown provenance and wedges of cheap cheese, all left to languish in the midday heat.
Fair or not, the scenario is far from the origins of antipasti. As the first course of an Italian meal, it is more than a collection of disparate dishes — it is a way of eating. And antipasto is what keeps lunchtime diners lingering at Sydney’s Matteo Downtown past 3pm on a Wednesday afternoon.
Cow’s milk burrata stracciatella, prawns crudo from Matteo Downtown
Buffalo mozzarella, Kurobuta capocollo, and pistachio
“Antipasti is something I believe is really important,” head chef and co-owner Orazio D’Elia tells Hospitality. “Before your Mum makes pasta at home, you always go to the fridge and grab a few things to nibble on. I don’t believe you go to the restaurant and just order steak — you always need to have something to stimulate your appetite.”
In D’Elia’s native Italy, appetite ‘teasing’ is called stuzzicare l’appetito and it’s an essential component of every meal.
STUZZICARE L’APPETITO
Although associated with formal occasions, stuzzicare l’appetito is widespread in Italy, with diners beginning most meals with at least one antipasto dish.
“Even if you go for pizza, people will share some prosciutto and mozzarella or some calamari fritti,” says D’Elia. “Every restaurant in Italy will have this.”
According to D’Elia, people are more likely to skip secondi or dessert before they forgo antipasti — an attitude that makes sense to James Kummrow, head chef at Fatto Bar & Cantina in Melbourne.
“It’s what you eat when you decide what you’re going to eat,” he says. “For me, antipasti is a welcoming gesture, [reflective of] genuine Italian generosity.”
But it’s not just an Italian tradition. “Everyone has a different version of it,” says Elvis Abrahanowicz from Continental Deli Bar & Bistro in Sydney’s Newtown.
Abrahanowicz was born in Argentina and has Spanish, Italian and Polish heritage — a mix that is apparent at Continental Deli, a venue where he hopes to keep family food traditions alive.
“Argentina is pretty much half Spanish and Italian,” he says. “It has European influences with the same customs.
“We designed the menu based on what we like to eat. At home, we’d always go and get a bunch of cold cuts and cheese and tinned goodness, like pickles and marinated vegetables. Dad would have the table covered in deli paper and cold cuts — that’s just how we eat.”
REGIONALITY
At Continental Deli, antipasto dishes are reflective of regional variations and ingredients are influenced by Italian, Spanish and Eastern European traditions.
“The cold cuts are Italian, Spanish and a little Eastern European,” says Abrahanowicz. “A lot of the pickles are Eastern European. The seafood is more of a Spanish influence and Eastern European, too.”
The regionally diverse menu showcases the distinct characteristics of different cold cuts. Jamón and prosciutto are both cured pork leg that appear similar to the untrained eye, but Abrahanowicz says the differences are plain to see.
“The prosciutto di Parma is saltier and more floral and the Spanish jamón is sweeter and nuttier. The ibérico is even more so, because of the intensity. Italians have culatello, which tends to be a bit a richer like jamón. There are so many products — everyone has a version of something.”
Antipasto from Fatto Bar & Cantina
There are even clear differences between Italian prosciuttos, with Parma and San Daniele the most popular.
“They’re made from two different types of pig and have different flavours. The colour, the ageing and the shape of the legs are actually different,” says Abrahanowicz.
At Matteo Downtown’s sister restaurant in Double Bay, San Daniele is on the menu while Parma is available at the CBD location. Both feature on antipasti boards and as individual dishes.
The boards are “the king of antipasti” says D’Elia and the Matteo offerings showcase regional ingredients from around Italy.
“In Double Bay, we have antipasto Italiano, which comes in three plates. A salumi plate, a cheese plate and a plate with olives, grilled pumpkin, pickled chillies and grilled eggplant. We buy mortadella from Australia, but in Italy it’s from Bologna. Fresh cheeses are from the south and aged cheeses are from the north. The olives are from Liguria, Puglia, Calabria and Sicily.”
Salumi from Continental Deli
Cheeses from Continental Deli
Matteo Downtown’s mozzarella bar — a southern Italian thing according to D’Elia — is another example of pan-regionalism.
“We don’t just serve buffalo mozzarella, we also have mozzarella from Campania and burrata and stracciatella, which is from Puglia,” says the chef.
All three venues try to source local Australian ingredients wherever possible. “When we first opened, we were all about 100 per cent Italian products,” says Kummrow. “As the quality of local producers has gone up, it’s become more of a mix. For me, the prosciutto will always be Italian. At the moment, we have an 18-monthold Parma, beautifully aged with a lovely texture and awesome fat to protein ratio that’s shaved on a razor-sharp slicer.”
The remaining items are sourced from Salt Kitchen Charcuterie. Based in Ballarat, the company is run by ex-chef Michael Nun who trained in Italy.
Regionality is evident not just in the individual components but in the way they’re bound together. Taking inspiration from the contemporary eateries found in Italy’s large regional meccas such as Napoli, Rome, Milan and Florence, Matteo Downtown’s approach isn’t dictated by strict geographical boundaries, and when it comes to the creation of antipasti dishes, D’Elia has taken liberties when combining traditional regional ingredients.
“Some dishes are very traditional and some I twist a bit,” says D’Elia. “Tartare is famous in the north, but the pizza bread we serve it with is from the south.”
STEWARDSHIP
Whether following tradition to a T or allowing for creative license, the ethos of Italian cuisine lies at the heart of antipasti dishes.
“If you’re sourcing an amazing product, you want to do as little to it as possible,” says Kummrow. “It’s not just where the product came from, it’s who the farmer is, what he loves about the product and what he loves to do with it.
“[Salt Kitchen Charcuterie’s Michael] Nun isn’t just sourcing the pigs, he’s working with the farmer and getting the animal grown to the right specs so he can work with the best sized muscle. The work isn’t in the cooking techniques; the real work is done beforehand, in going to the markets and talking to farmers. We want the provenance of the product to sing on the plate.”
Which also ties in with respecting the heritage of ingredients. “Before it comes to your table, there’s a history behind it,” says D’Elia.
The process of cooking antipasti is more a matter of stewarding ingredients rather than applying complex techniques. For D’Elia that means sourcing the best cheeses for Matteo Downtown’s mozzarella bar then carefully considering how to serve them.
“I know the company I work with make beautiful buffalo mozzarella, burrata and stracciatella, so I picked things that go with them,” he says.
A dish that presents simply as buffalo mozzarella with salumi is the culmination of months curing Kurobuta pork neck inhouse to make a capocollo that offsets the creamy cheese.
“For the stracciatella, we make prawn crudo and prawn oil with the heads, before adding seaweed dust to break up the white and red,” says D’Elia. “We serve ricotta with Blackmore Wagyu bresaola. Bresaola is very traditional and from the region of Milan, but it’s made with normal beef. The Australian product is second to none.”
If chefs are stewards of the ingredients, then wait staff are shepherds, guiding diners through the Italian way of eating.
“We want to give people a way of eating,” says D’Elia. “When people sit down, I tell the waiters they’re in charge of the order. It’s not just about offering an Italian meal, it’s about showing them the Italian way of eating. You won’t have prawn crudo and then pork ragù. If you start with prawn crudo, you might go to spaghetti vongole. If you feel people want your help, politely offer it; it’s nice to guide them.”
The wait staff at Fatto Bar & Cantina undergo extensive training and are encouraged to offer advice to customers by suggesting their favourite dishes and helping them pair different salumi and cheeses.
Salumi from Fatto Bar & Cantina
“Contrast is important, so we would never serve capocollo with prosciutto together because they’re so similar,” says Kummrow. “You would have something contrasting like the mortadella and the prosciutto as your meats. And it’s really important to have a soft or curd and a hard cheese.”
It’s occasionally worth serving similar products together, if only to help curious diners grasp the differences.
“We get people who want to see the difference between jamón and prosciutto,” says Abrahanowicz. “Other people might not think about it as much, but it doesn’t matter if it’s delicious and they’re enjoying it.”
