BeanScene Magazine

Alessandro Pavoni always has two things on his mind: coffee and food. A self-confessed coffee addict, Alessandro justifies the vice as an essential ingredient to his daily routine. “I’m a chef, I have to stay awake somehow,” he says.

At the height of his addiction, Alessandro would drink 10 short black coffees a day when he first trained and worked as a chef. These days, a heart problem has forced him to cut down, but it would seem nothing can fully prevent Alessandro from enjoying his Moka pot coffee.

“I look forward to my morning coffee, it’s the best – no milk, just one sugar,” Alessandro says, in his thick Italian accent. “Then I have one after every meal, after lunch and after dinner. Maybe my health problems come from drinking too much coffee?”

Alessandro adds that he likes a touch of grappa in his coffee after meals, known as caffè corretto. “I don’t see many people in Australia doing this,” he says. “I think you like to add more milk to your coffee than grappa.”

After years of adapting to Australia’s milk-based preference, Alessandro says he’s tentatively starting to adapt to the country’s trend. “I only believe in milk coffee for breakfast. I took my partner out to a pizzeria in Italy and asked for a cappuccino and the guy didn’t even have the milk.”

In many Italian regions, Alessandro says the key to a good cappuccino is unpasteurised milk. “It takes the coffee to the next level,” he says. “It’s disappointing we don’t get it here in Australia. But besides that, Australian coffee is second only to Italian.”

Remembering the coffee aroma that engulfed his childhood home in Brescia, Italy, Alessandro still says there’s no greater feeling than waking up to that warming smell.
“Every day my mum would get up before me and put the coffee on, so the smell would wake me up,” Alessandro says. “She would make caffè latte for us with cookies – usually home-made shortbread – and that was my breakfast before I went to school.”

When he turned 16, Alessandro progressed to drinking two coffees a day. He would enjoy his morning caffè latte then return home between 12pm and 2pm on his school break and enjoy a traditional meal together with his mum and dad, followed by an afternoon Bialetti Moka coffee with Iilly Caffè beans. 

“Coffee comes under the umbrella of the food culture because it finishes off a meal or starts the day,” Alessandro says. “Italians like to spend time cooking and eating and we are particular about the quality of food and drink – including our coffee.”

Having sampled coffee throughout Italy, Alessandro is fairly confident he’s sourced the number one place to get a guaranteed delicious brew. “The best coffee I’ve had in Italy is from the Autogrill (a convenience store along Italian highways),” he says. “It’s absolutely the best coffee because they make a crazy amount of it. There’s often two people working on a six-group machine and they don’t stop. So if you are travelling throughout Italy, you should stop at an Autogrill – all the Italians will agree with me.”

Like his passion for coffee, Alessandro’s interest in food was also sparked at a young age. When he was 10, Alessandro once ate a whole three-kilogram stuffed hen his grandmother cooked just for him. “I used to help my grandma to cook when I was a kid,” he says. “She gave me the passion so I decided to become a chef.”

Alessandro studied at the Art, Science and Technological Centre of Food in Brescia and the Caterina de Medici Hospitality School. He went on to work with renowned chefs Iginio Massari and Giuseppe Maffioli at Ristorante Carlo Magno in Italy, and later at Michelin star venues such as La Rotonde in France and the Villa Fiordaliso on Lake Garda, Italy. To broaden his culinary horizons, Alessandro worked in Bermuda at the famous Restaurant Lido before moving permanently to Sydney in 2003 in search of new beginnings and a culinary challenge.

“I had a hard time in my transition from Italy to Australia,” Alessandro recalls. “I was completely lost because I didn’t speak a word of English. The first year was a nightmare. I had to go in search of Italian-speaking restaurants because I couldn’t speak English so I couldn’t communicate.”

Surrounding himself with Italian-speaking chefs, Alessandro found himself wedged between a world of the familiar and the foreign. It wasn’t until he met his now wife, Anna, that he learnt English.
Today, Alessandro can make a solid attempt at the Aussie lingo. “How ya going mate?” he says. “In the beginning, everyone would say ‘good on ya mate’, but I understood it as ‘good onions’. For months I would say ‘good onions, good onions’, then my father-in-law finally corrected me and it’s been a funny story ever since.”

One thing that did give comfort to the Italian expat when he first arrived in Australia was the coffee culture. “I was absolutely amazed,” he says. “I’ve travelled a lot of Europe, to countries outside the Italian border, including France, Switzerland and Austria, and the coffee is terrible. Then I came here and found that the coffee is fantastic.”

With a greater grasp on the Australian language and way of life, Alessandro assumed the role of Executive Chef at the Park Hyatt in 2005 before realising his dream of opening his own restaurant, Ormeggio at The Spit in 2009 with Fraser Guthrie.

Overlooking the Sydney Harbour at Mosman’s d’Albora Marina, Ormeggio is an ode to contemporary Italian cuisine, embracing Lombardian cuisine and Australia’s fresh produce. “There are a lot of new and traditional techniques of cooking at Ormeggio and a thought process behind every dish,” Alessandro says. The restaurant has been recognised as one of Sydney’s premier waterside dining destinations and was awarded a coveted Chef Hat in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Food Guide only nine months after opening. It was also listed in Gourmet Traveller’s Top 100 Australian restaurants.

Demonstrating his devotion to preserving Italian culinary culture, Alessandro is a committee member of The Council of Italian Restaurants in Australia (CIRA). “We try to make people understand the originality of Italian food, what real Italian cuisine is all about,” he says. The organisation holds cooking classes, gala dinners and supports traditional and evolving values in Italian food.

As Ormeggio’s reputation soared, Alessandro got his first taste as a public figure when he made a guest appearance on Masterchef. Standing tall and proud, the slightly intimidating Alessandro stepped aside as he put his apprentice Alex Keen through a cook-off against contestant Hayden Quinn. Alessandro’s famous words to his protégé apprentice were, “Alex, if you don’t win, I cut your head off”. Millions watched as Alex lost the challenge and left his boss looking less than impressed. Worried viewers can rest assured, Alex’s head is still intact. “I’m not that tough,” Alessandro says to defend his reputation. “Competitive but fair.”

In August 2011 Alessandro opened his second restaurant in Westfield, Sydney. Named after the traditional Lombardian dish of spit roast with quails, ducks, port and rabbit served with polenta, Spiedo is quite informal in contrast to Ormeggio.

However, in both his venues, Alessandro ensures Vittoria’s Cinque Stella coffee is served at both his restaurants, to ensure visitors have a pleasant experience. “If you finish a meal with a bad coffee, you won’t forget about it,” he says. “The coffee at the end of a meal is the icing on the cake. It completes the whole dining experience. If that goes wrong, it just ruins everything.”

In attempt to combine his two favourite things, Alessandro says matching coffee with restaurant food is popular because it goes well with so many dishes, particularly desserts. His signature coffee-inspired dessert is Barbajada Solida, based on a traditional Milanese winter drink. Using Amedei chocolate and coffee, Barbajada caramel gelato, almond and mint crumble. “With those ingredients I add an egg yolk, cook it in the oven, let it set like a chocolate mousse, then on a low heat I add cream,” he says. Oozing with melted chocolate, coffee flavour and a touch of cream, Alessandro says this dish is “bellissima”.

Moving from the snowy Lombardian Alps to Sydney’s sparkling harbour, Alessandro is a long way from home, but as he speaks of his new country it’s clear where his heart lies. “I choose Australia,” he says. “I love the people and the lifestyle. Maybe Sydney is getting a little crazy, it’s getting hectic and busy, but it reminds me of Europe because of its affluent culture.”

These days, Alessandro is proud to call himself a Sydney-sider, living on the northern beaches with his Australian wife. And when he’s not slaving away at one of his restaurants, Alessandro can be found cruising up the coast on his Harley Davidson Fatboy or surfing at one of the local beaches. “The surfing culture is great, but as for footy, I don’t care, I just like to surf,” he says.

With limited free time, Alessandro says the daily grind of running two restaurants can be demanding: managing staff, suppliers and running cooking classes. “I don’t manage, it’s a 24-hour job,” he says. “When you own your own restaurant, you are part of the business so you think about it all the time. I love it because I’ve always loved cooking and I dream about it and talk about it all the time.”

The hard work, however, is a labour of love. “I’ve been working as a chef for 24 years,” he says. “You can’t do this job if you don’t love it, it’s too much. Thankfully, I love it everyday, I love cooking and I love leaving each day with a big smile.”