Giuseppe, Arnaldo & Sons
Like a polished display case in a fusty museum - carefully lit,
gleaming like crystal, secure as Fort Knox - the glass salumi
cabinet, on a long and handsome pink marble table beside a
fire-engine red, pedestal-mounted Berkel slicer, is the
centrepiece.
It tells more of the story than any other single element within
the craftily designed, outrageously sexy Giuseppe, Arnaldo %26amp;
Sons: Maurice Terzini and Robert Marchetti’s homecoming
performance.
Beyond the dangling prosciutto and guanciale, it is the story of
a restaurant through value-adding to pigs. Primacy of produce;
clever branding; Italian heritage; modern Australian style and
simplicity. Walk around the salumi table a few more times, inhale
deeply, and you’ll soon understand a bit more about one of the more
exciting restaurants to open in Melbourne for years.
Not that there’s anything radical about the food orchestrated by
chef/partner Robert Marchetti and his team, a slightly more
ambitious version of the rustic tune they’ve been playing at North
Bondi Italian for several years. It’s good, honest and refreshingly
unpredictable/approachable food that stays true to the Italian
principle of respecting quality produce from the start. It’s a menu
as much about “food” as it is “cooking”.
And Marchetti cares about food more than most.
No, what’s exciting about GAS is not so much what you eat but
how you eat, the way the act of refreshment and nourishment can be
spun so many ways. The way it invites customers to get involved.
And for that, we can probably thank Marchetti’s partner Terzini, a
man who apparently never stops questioning the rules of dining,
never stops looking for inspiration, in this case with a nod to New
York chef/restaurateur Mario Batali.
Despite the money, despite the hype, GAS is just a place to eat
good, simple food inspired by Rome. It’s nothing more or less than
a great modern trattoria.
But the style element of everything - from the architecture down
to the printing of the receipt - has been orchestrated by one of
the true innovators of Australia’s restaurant industry, the man who
invented Caffe e Cucina all those years ago, and kept going with Il
Bacaro, Melbourne Wine Room, Otto, Icebergs Dining Room and North
Bondi Italian: Terzini, the Melbourne boy made good. Cast your eye
around - beyond the menu (which may have you pining for the back
streets of Trastevere) - and other elements provide essential clues
to the essence: the spotlit bread station, where each table’s
selection of grissini, focaccia, sourdough and casalinga is racked,
cut and doled out; or that marble wine “fountain”, behind a
ceiling-high stainless-steel silo-like racking system of bottles,
where four fresh, uncomplicated, food-friendly wines are literally
on tap above a pink marble trough for those who choose the “vini in
caraffa” option, the house wine you can feel good about.
And there is the floor staff, replete in butcher’s white cotton
jackets, jeans and Converse trainers. Where does he find them?
Comparing Giuseppe, Arnaldo %26amp; Sons to Rockpool Bar %26amp; Grill
is both inevitable and pointless: they sail different culinary
waters, delivering different dining experiences. Yet one cannot
help but compare the casual sophistication of Maurice Terzini’s
opening-month waitstaff with that of Perry. GAS cruises where
Rockpool has always struggled with the wind shifts.
And inevitably, as you sit in one of many variously tiled “pods”
that form the eating zones here, jumping out at you via clever -
almost theatrical - lighting from a stark, black backdrop that
extends through the restaurant’s ceilings and floors, there is the
food, from a menu with more departments than Telstra.
Slices of pink, fresh prosciutto ($12) from Lismore on waxed
paper branded “Salumi by Robert Marchetti”. Or fragrant, sweet
mortadella ($10) served warm with a never-ending supply of those
excellent breads and house-branded olive oil. A dish of fabulous
spaghettini with tomato, oodles of garlic and a swathe of briny sea
urchin roe ($24); orecchiette with an anchovy-laced broccoli sauce;
perfectly “bitey” pappardelle with a deeply flavoured, meaty ragu
of “wild boar” ($23, although we doubt there was ever anything wild
about the animal). A wild chicory (puntarelle) salad ($17) with
Sicilian anchovy, dandelion, a shallot dressing and a shaving of
Asiago (cheese), served with a selection of vinegars. Raw scallops
($15) dressed with oil, lemon, young rocket and slices of pickled
dwarf peach, looking suspiciously like olives. A lovely steak (La
Tagliata, $29) dressed with a tangle of spring onion, green
peppercorns, lemon, oil and fresh chilli. A pea, shallot and fresh
herb salad ($9) sprinkled with dried ricotta salata.
Or a $14 chocolate pot that is like eating a stiff, cool,
Italian hot chocky; an Italian trifle (zuppa Inglese, $22 for two)
that sings with fruit, almond, pistachio and grappa-infused
sponge.
Trust me; apart from the salumi, which - ironically - is not
only excellent but too expensive, eating here is great value for
money, because the food’s simplicity falls back on great produce
handled sympathetically, with true Italian feeling.
Inevitably, really, the most interesting question about this new
restaurant was never going to be “is it any good?” Of course it’s
good. It has the management, the staff (both in the amazing kitchen
and on the floor), the ideas, the resources, the look.
The question was always: “will it work?” Look at everything
Terzini has done in the past, and more recently with his sidekick
Marchetti on board and you cannot help but wonder how a business at
Crown provides continuity. And the answer is, it doesn’t. This is a
break, a development and, probably, a toe in the water of
potentially more lucrative waters abroad under the PBL
umbrella.
How does that affect - or disaffect - quite literally a
generation of Melbourne food and wine appreciators who grew up on
the style and substance of Terzini-conceived establishments? Will
we go to it despite it being at Crown? Or does the target audience
even include us? On the basis of a couple of early visits when
Marchetti and Terzini were around, the answer is, for me, “yes”. I
may not go as often as if the restaurant were in a
less-institutionalised location, a location without so much
baggage.
But I’ll go.
Perhaps mindful of this very Melbourne scepticism, this
expectation of what a Terzini restaurant is and is not, the boys
have over-delivered. So to the final question. Can they keep it
up?
And for that, we’ll just have to wait.
Score: 1-9: Unacceptable.
10-11: Just OK, some shortcomings.
12: Fair. 13: Getting there.
14: Recommended. 15: Good.
16: Really good. 17: Truly
excellent. 18: Outstanding.
19-20: Approaching perfection, Victoria’s
best.
