IN CONVERSATION: JOE VARGETTO
We interrupted Melbourne hospitality royalty in the middle of prepping for a special dinner to discuss life, food, bikes and techno.
It was a cold night, pouring with rain. Inside the kitchen of Mister Bianco however, things were nice and cosy.
The restaurant on High St, Kew belongs to chef and something of Melbourne hospitality royalty Joe (Joseph/Joey/Giuseppe/Pippo) Vargetto. He came up in the kitchen at some of Melbourne’s biggest institutions, cooked in Michelin start restaurants in Europe and has opened and run his own establishments across a career that began in the nineties, and still went strong through COVID.
He was kind enough to invite us in to his rabbit warren-like establishment for a lesson in chopping onions, teaching us how to make a hearty bowl of pasta lenticchie, and spend hours chatting with US, Soup Athletica about a whole host of things, despite the fact he had terrines to make for a special dinner the following night.
I: ON FOOD
During our time in the kitchen you told us that when you first got into cooking that it wasn’t really something that guys, especially young Italian boys would be into. Were there any moments from your childhood or younger teen years that when you look back on them you say maybe food was kind of always there, you just hadn’t realised it yet?
Food wise was more of a subconscious thing because I always loved aromas and flavours. Our backyard growing up was full of eucalyptus trees and whatever else, but my dad and uncle cut them all down and put in apricot trees, plum trees and figs and like that everything was always to do with food. An argument would start with “ah yeah you’re a dickhead” then finish with “want some apricots?” or “you see my wine? It’s good wine. Fucking idiot”. But food was always a part of it.
I think the other part of it is grappling with the golden handcuffs right? So many people are like, I don’t like what I do, but I’m paid so much to do it. If they were paid less, maybe they’re forced to go and pursue what they love to do, which is kind of what happened to me.
I was at university at the time doing commerce to make my mum happy. In my first year I did okay, second year I was doing okay but I was mainly using it as a dating service or getting smashed every other day. It wasn’t making me happy, and so I had this moment where I dropped out at the end of the year and was going to take a year off. This is in 1994, and at the time I had a friend who was a chef at Florentino and he said “instead of not working Joe why don’t you come and work?” And I said okay because before that I was just at home, and going out a lot, so I went down to Florentino to be a kitchen hand. It was during my time working at the pass where my friend asked “why don’t you be a chef?” which was something I’d never thought about. Now everything became about food – like I’m sitting in a bar with a friend talking about food, and a girl comes up to us and starts talking to us but we just want to talk about how we’ve reduced the sauce or done this and done that.
I ended up completing my apprenticeship in 3 years instead of 4, because I got into the early release program which makes it sound like some kind of prison, and the day after I finished I jumped on a plane and head to Europe where I worked in France, Northern Italy, some three-star Michelin places. With how things had been going before I started cooking I think it’s what I needed - being in kitchens that were like military to a tee. But because I had a Sicilian mother I felt prepared for it all, the abuse didn’t affect me, it was more like “is this all you’ve got?”
At the time what drew me to it all was a combination of a few things. It was the freedom, working the nights (because I’m not a very good morning person), the opportunity to get on a plane and go overseas, and a security thing as well you know. I would probably always have a job.
The last thing is that I liked and still like making people happy, I’m a pleaser. So the opportunity to do that through food was a big thing. I like to hear when the restaurant is full, there is laughter and joy, it’s fun. I stand at the back of the restaurant and think to myself “yeah this is great”. But it’s also a challenge you know. It’s not easy, and I think that pursuing that challenge of being a chef and having a restaurant is what keeps me happy.
After some time in Europe you came back to Melbourne right?
Yeah I came back to work at Langtons under Philippe Mouchel, and that’s where I also met Scott Pickett. I was there for four years or so, working as Scott’s senior. And then one day Scott went to England, and I got poached to work at Crown…which was an experience. I’d have to cook for Kerry Packer, and that was a lot of stress. Phones would ring at 3 or 4 in the morning, I’d stopped riding and gained a bunch of weight. Then there was a property at 35 Little Bourke St that was a bit run down, but it was perfect - that became Oyster Little Bourke.
After you’d opened your first place Oyster Little Bourke in the city, what was the next step as you started to establish yourself a little more.
I opened Oyster Little Bourke and it was a French place that was what Entrecôte (in Paris) is, which is a heaving joint where they have all different types of steaks, chips and sauce vert. That’s what I actually wanted to do, and we got to that point. We had this big menu and all these steaks from across Australia in these different cuts of meat and it was great. I did that for three years then opened here at Mister Bianco which was good because it was close to home, then sold up in the city and opened a little place in Kangaroo Ground called Fondata 1872.
It was a beautiful place but after a few years I needed to sell it just because of the driving. I remember one night driving home after service and it was pitch black, then this deer comes out of nowhere. That, and all the back and forward in the car was getting too much. So I went back to the city and opened Massi which was great. During the week we got all the lawyers and accountants, then at night all the stylish tourists, it was a lot of fun but we had to close it up during COVID and think about what do with the space.
Mister Bianco seems to be kind of your third child. There’s a real strong attachment there that we saw during lockdown and even now that you’ve sold Fondata 1872 and closed Massi. What was the original vision for this kind of space when you first opened it, and how has it evolved and changed since?
At Oyster Little Bourke everyone used to come into the restaurant, which I’ll remind you was very, very, typical French cuisine. And friends would come in and say to me “Joe, you’re a better Italian chef than you are French.” And I say well, kind of depending how you look at it sure. Around the same time there was this place, just down the road from me.
I can’t remember what it was originally called but I do know whatever was here went bust in four or five months. The previous owner just thew me the keys down and walked away. When I came in an had a look around it was shithouse. Everything concrete, and classic chalkboard against the wall type of thing. So we pulled everything out and created this super simple, brighter space and let the food do the talking.
We opened it and it was packed from day one because people out this side of town were just sick and tired of crappy food. Centonove (around the corner) wasn’t what it is now but we’re both very different places. Mister Bianco is a little bit more eclectic in and out of the kitchen. We are a bit more alto cucina and do food that you won’t see there, which suits our clientele. From the start we were going to be a really simple Sicilian restaurant with you classics (think arancini) but I wanted more. People liked it too and they would say “oh it’s nice Joe” but I could see they wanted more. So I slowly built up, levelled up, took things higher you know - but always with the aim of delivering on quality with each iteration. And it’s how we got to where we are now thirteen years later.
And now the space is really cool. We’ve got upstairs, we’ve got the room in the back. The food might be refined or a bit different but the space is still kind of rustic and still very ME. You see the restaurant openings in Broadsheet and stuff and some of them are very cookie cutter, while we have a bit more of a homely feel to it while also being honest and eclectic. Initially the design was pretty boring, and it was tricky because Mister Bianco is a series of small rooms, so we kind of added elements and create all these unique spaces with their own feelings. You sit in one corner and you’re basically in the kitchen. Go over to another corner and what you’re looking at makes you feel like you are in New York, and that’s what I wanted.
Whether it’s since you opened here, or even since starting back in the city, are there some key things within the kitchen or the hospitality scene that have changed for the better?
I’ve been a big advocate and wanted to really educate people that hospitality isn’t a transient industry. The thing is there are two industries within hospitality. You’ve got the kitchen, which the government gives sponsorship for permanent residency, and then you have front of house (a conveyor belt) which doesn’t offer permanent residency.
In Switzerland their hospitality industry is kind of similar to pharmacy here in Australia. You can only get a license when they come up, so you don’t end up with the number of bars, cafes, restaurants. They also have these tiers of hospitality, so if a license for a restaurant comes up, you have to take it as a restaurant, same again for a sandwich shop. It breeds this idea of personal emotional and financial investment and creates a place where the people going to work there actually care about the food, about the design, about the experience. Then you head down the road here to a small restaurant here where you might be getting ten dollars an hour, not getting your super paid, there’s no hospitality training. But fortunately that’s starting to stop.
To come work here at Mister Bianco, you have to sit a mini exam, write, go through all these different questionnaires, and study our food allergy information, so there is all this learning that you undertake before you even get on the floor. I care about this stuff deeply, our clientele care about it, so I want the people here to care too.
And to bring it back to the golden handcuffs again, where hospitality might attract people for two or three years while they are going to school or working out what they want to do and then they’re gone - which is fine. At the same time we have a lot of students come in here, they do food running or whatever else and they’re absolutely brilliant, but they don’t see it as a long term thing even if what they are studying isn’t something they are passionate about, or even like.
This industry can be really rewarding. If you’re good at it you can almost do whatever you like wherever you want. The conversation, the culture and the perception of the industry is that it is skilled labour and people are starting to realise that.
Can you tell us about the process of putting together your cookbook Siciliano?
It was a work in progress for probably ten years, and was actually going to be called My Italian Lunchbox. My talent manager back in the day said we need to do a cookbook. So she did all the chapters and the summary, press release, how the book was going to look and all of that and I didn’t like it. I mean - “My Italian Lunchbox” I loved, but where it went from there, no way. Anyway it was passed on to a few publishers and one said “we want to do it”, but it didn’t feel genuine. I thought “so if I write that book, get in the car, crash and die, that’s what is going to be left.” I don’t want that shit. I don’t need me on the cover and an endorsement from Nigella Lawson. And they were freaking out wondering how I could say no, and ended in loggerheads with the talent management as well.
And so I put it under the pillow and slept on it for a while. Time went on and I worked on some other things, then one day I was going through all my recipe notes from my time overseas and I came across one from when I was working at restaurant Gaultiero Marchesi on a piece of paper. Taped to this piece of paper must have been the first garganelli I ever rolled, I must have put it in my pocket. Every night I would write in this notebook, with recipes and other notes. I would have taken the garganelli out of my pocket, and taped it to the page while it was still fresh. Of course obviously it was now all dried out and crumbling, but I started flicking through all these recipes and just thought okay Joe you’ve gotta do this.
So that cookbook is basically an understanding of Joe growing up Italo-Australian and kind of witnessing these things mum use to do around home like collect the snails after the rain, or when as a family we would go out to Korumburra and collect all the mushrooms. It also kind of tells a story of Australia working out what it wanted to be, even if that was a bit innocent and dumb during the 80s and 90s, but slowly growing up and opening it’s eyes to other cultures and food. Slowly slowly my friends who used to call me a wog did a full u-turn and used to come to the house and ask “can we eat here tonight?” And then they wouldn’t leave the bastards, or they would come back every night and say “oh Joe, Mrs. Vargetto we love it here”. A couple of years ago these were the same Stuart’s and Andrew’s who would pick on me because I had salami in my sandwiches, so the book captures how that all evolved, how food is a conversation piece, and how it can break down barriers through this incredible, emotional connection.
You said that the book helped unpack the Italo-Australian side of your identity. How has food or your career also helped you connect with Italy?
What happened when a lot of Italian like my mum and everyone else came here was they were coming to a country that wasn’t ready yet. Any my mum would always complain, there’s no flour here there’s no durum wheat, all I do is walk through Richmond and smell the deep fryer from the fish and chip shop. The thing is that with this wave of Italian immigration, everyone was just using what they had available to them, most of which was stuff you wouldn’t even see in Italy.
Take my mum for example. There were some things she would serve weren’t because she didn’t want to make it, but because she couldn’t get the ingredients for it. She couldn’t buy or even make ricotta because the milk wasn’t good enough, it didn’t have enough fat. That’s why when we would go to Korumburra and visit the dairy farm, she would take bottles and bottles of all this milk, and she’d finally be able to make ricotta.
With this assimilation they all forgot how to make cavatelli, because they didn’t have anything they could make it with. And that’s all I had. It was when I went back to Italy that I realised “okay, now I understand all the stuff my parents were saying”. So then when I returned to Australia I was doing actual, real Italian food and the Italians here didn’t like it because they were used to the double colour pasta with bacon and cream so there has really been this interesting battle between two worlds.
II: ON FOOD & BIKES
How would you describe your philosophy around the connection between cycling and food?
It’s very, very important. With anything you put into your body you’ll find out what it’s going to do within 24 hours. It’s really strange but I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis when I got hit by a car. So one of the reasons why I’m probably not pissed off about it is because I actually found out that I had this illness.
So I got hit, then diagnosed, and my doctor said we need to treat you in different ways, and not that it wasn’t the case before but food and good eating was an important part of that. On top of that I don’t smoke or take drugs. I stopped alcohol probably six or seven years ago - although I probably drank enough before that. The thing about my food for example, whether that is what I eat or cook is that it’s kind of vegetable based with a good amount of carbohydrates which is very important. Mix that with good oils and salt and it can help everything fall into place because it will help your mental state to
PEDLA x MISTER BIANCO: GIRO DI GNOCCHI RIDE
III: ON BIKES
When did you first get into cycling? Was there a big moment where you went from being that kid on an Apollo racer to a cyclist proper?
As a kid I used to cycle all the time. I was never part of a team or anything like that but I had an Apollo racer, and I used to ride from home in Sandringham to the city and back so I was always on the bike. I never got to the point where I could actually do it, because down where I was living it was all about football or soccer. I played for Beaumaris under 15’s then stopped because that was it, after that it was play football for Sandringham or nothing.
I’ve always been a bit of a risk-seeker, so if it’s not risky I kind of don’t like it. I had my Apollo when I was younger and all the other kids in the neighbourhood had their BMX’s and we’d ride around all the time, so I was definitely riding, but that was just a part of childhood. When I was younger I was always watching the Tour de France or the Giro, was interested in the types of gears and how the bikes or the frames were made. Since then I’ve been over to Italy, and when I got back from working in Europe in 2004 I got back on the bike.
I don’t know if there’s a specific moment but it’s a build up of a few things. I’ve played tennis for a few years and whatever I get out of tennis I also get out of cycling, it’s very similar being an individual sport. There can be teams sure, or you can put your earphones on and just ride and forget about everything. There are always these beautiful moments on the bike where it’s a stunning day, you have wind on your back and you’re riding along forgetting about all the bad times. Only the bike gives you that, and it’s what keeps me going every day.
The last few years though have been hard. You know it’s like if I’m out on the bike then I’m not at the restaurant and I have to deal with that internal monologue. And in 2015 I got hit by a car pretty bad that really messed with me. What happened was I was riding to Portsea on the grand final long weekend. I’m riding down along the beach doing about 30ish kilometres an hour and this car pulled out onto the road and didn’t give way so I kind of hit it, the doctors said that if the impact had been maybe half a second earlier then he would have hit me and it would have been a much different story. The police took all these photos of my smashed up bike, the windscreen of the car, theres my broken ribs and the doctors have come to check if the guy in the photos is me, because if they didn’t find me in the hospital they were going to check the morgue downstairs. Before the accident I used to absolute fly down hills, trying to emulate Pantani who is my hero you know “go fast, die, yeah it’s great!”. Following that I didn’t really want to ride in groups, and just wanted to take my time.
What’s the best day you’ve had on the bike?
We’ve got a place down on the Mornington Peninsula, and there has been some days where it’s a super casual Sunday so I haven’t had to wake up too early and I’ll jump on the bike and go to Port Melbourne, hit the water and then just keep riding. The good thing about those days is I don’t have to come back for a couple days, just do a hundred kilometres or so, spend a day down there relaxing, refuelling, then eventually come back.
There was also another one just after the fires in the Kinglake area. It was mesmerising, absolutely unreal - not in the beauty but in the horror, I’m not even sure why they had that cycle tour go ahead. It was maybe six months after the fires, and down the bottom where the ride started was normal, untouched. It was as we started going up the hill, we reached a point where all of a sudden you could see the whole place and the area is burnt out. Trees burnt, road burnt, cars burnt, everything burnt. As we’re riding across the top everyone went silent and there was this real sadness in the air.
As we got closer to the end of that ride it started raining like nothing else, and I wasn’t prepared for the rain at all, not in any kind of rain gear or anything, and the last 25 kilometres there was rain and logging trucks everywhere spraying water all over the place so it didn’t matter if I was wearing glasses or not. The exhilaration and all the emotions from that day, I don’t think I’ll ever match it.
Lastly, not specific days but I’ve done some great riding in Europe. I love riding around Lake Garda, and there has been some really tough days in the mountains – going up and over the Stelvio was incredible, and I climbed the Gavia which was brutal. The road is so skinny and bumpy, it’s so steep, and when I was coming up towards the top this huge eagle flew across the road in front of me and we locked eyes. It was surreal.
What bike or bikes do you have at the moment?
I’m a bit of an Italian snob. I just can’t get on an American bike or whatever else. I got on a Canadian bike for a while there, a Cervelo R5 but I can’t get back on it because it was the bike that I got hit on, and now it’s on my garage wall. Now I’ve got a Pinarello F12, I got it about a year ago. I’ve also got the F8 which has different geometry and is just such a pleasure to ride.
Do you have a dream bike?
That’s probably it. When I went to pick this bike up at the shop there was my bike and another one next to it that looked kind of similar. And I went to get the other one. And the guy who is the owner goes “Joe, oh no, no. Yours is the other one.” And I wonder why, so I ask. Apparently the difference was another $20,000. Like what is this a Harley Davidson? How does it become a $40,000 bike? Probably 6.8 kilograms or whatever else. So would that be my dream bike? Probably for the price but I don’t know how it rides.
IV: QUICKFIRE ROUND
For anyone who might already have your cookbook Siciliano, what is a recipe that is the perfect starting point if they haven’t already jumped into it.
There’s one dish in here that is really Aussie and really me. Hand rolled cavatelli, lemon verbena and yabbies.
It’s special because I remember we used to go and get the yabbies in my godfathers dam, and then there was the cavatelli where my mum was complaining that the flour was all wrong. And the lemon verbena is so nice because I could smell it whenever I came through the front door of the house.
What’s your favourite ingredients to cook with?
Morels. In Europe theres this mushroom called il chiodo, and another one called the ovoli. They grow white, then when they become mature, it breaks away from the bottom and this yellow mushroom comes up. If you pick one when it’s still white, and you slice it open it looks like an egg, but It’s a mushroom. Take that, put some parmesan, pecorino, olive oil and a few little leaves.
What do you think is the most under-appreciated ingredient?
A lot of the pulses and grains. I think in Australia we think that vegan or vegetarian is a dirty word. The interesting this is Sicilian food, or southern food is actually very vegan or vegetarian friendly, it’s one of those diets where you remove the meat, and whatever is left over is still great.
And the most overrated ingredient?
I don’t really want to say, but sometimes truffles. Not because they themselves are necessarily overrated, but I think the way that a lot of restaurants or chefs use them and because now they are just everywhere it has stopped becoming so special. The other one is caviar, it doesn’t do it for me.
When you’re doing prep in the kitchen do you run a playlist?
Not a specific playlist but I just put on my music. What’s normally on is probably techno, Juliette Fox or Deborah DeLuca, Nina Kavitz. I kind of gravitate towards women DJs a bit more, they have their finger on the pulse a bit more. Guy DJs are too aggressive at the moment. Their music can be good but it’s everything else that comes with it. It’s the same stuff I listened to when I’m on the bike or when I was a kid and I had the walkman on. Some Sunday nights you know maybe with my cousin we’d go to Revolver and hit up the front room.
What shoes do you wear in the kitchen?
Well, not these Prada boots that I have on now. When I started my apprenticeship I used to wear the kind of shoes you go to school in, those black leather ones. A friend I had when I was doing my apprenticeship was wearing Birkenstocks and said I had to get a pair. I got my first pair of Birkenstock Bostons in 1994. They used to be $50 so I’d get three or four pairs and just keep them. I went to buy a pair the other day and they didn’t have any stock of anything. Even if they did I wanted them in black and there were these designer ones for $400. I’m a narrow foot 43 so if you’d like to keep an eye out for me.
What’s the best meal you’ve ever had?
There was one meal in Lyon, at this tiny place. There was a bar and eight seats. I showed up a bit naive thinking oh eight seats they must be shit they’re never busy. But this place was just constantly rotating. I reckon they did about 300 people from about five o’clock. Just one meal, glass of wine, one meal glass of wine. I ordered the venison and polenta and was all baked together. We also had Coq au Vin and it was just the best meal. We also had a couple of jugs of Beaujolais and we got really fucking hammered it was great.
For anyone wanting to plan a hot girl summer in Italy this coming Euro-summer, and they want to go to Sicily, do you have any tips for our readers?
There’s a lot of places in Sicily, and a lot of beautiful places. It’s nice because the Sicilians want to keep some kind of tradition so don’t lose themselves too much in becoming too touristy. But saying that if you go to the wrong place it’s horrible. Like try to find a good arancino in Palermo, it’s hard. You’ve got some of the best beaches, but one of the best places I think is Parco della Zingaro and so clean. Taormina if you want to go to a touristy place - theres a great bar for granita called Bam Bar. The thing is that most of the good places worth seeing are going to be like that eight seater. There can be this bustling place at the piazza, then this pokey little thing on the corner and it’s probably better.
You don’t drink anymore but do you prefer reds or whites?
White actually, or Campari straight out of the bottle. I love good wine. Burgundy’s or top end champagnes.
How about your coffee?
Lots. Nothing but espresso. And maybe 10 cups a day. Most days, like today I haven’t eaten other than the pasta lenticchie, just the coffee. Isn’t that strange? I’ll be in a kitchen all day and we will have staff meal but then I’ll be in the back kind of working stuff out so I’ll miss it.
Do you collect anything?
Copper pans, I’ve got heaps of copper pans. And cook books, I’ve probably got some I have never read.
Last TV show, movie and book that you watched and read.
TV SHOW…Minds of a Cat.
MOVIE…The Offer. It’s about how the Godfather was made. It’s good but every time you watch it you know what’s going to happen because you’ve seen the Godfather.
LAST BOOK…which is good because just this week I wanted to re-read it. La Cuisine Spontaneé by Fredy Girardet who is a Swiss Italian or Swiss French chef. You’ll never find it in any book store. He had this cuisine called cuisine spontaneé where basically every time we go into the kitchen, everything will be different and completely spontaneous. You could have the same ingredients, but plated different, so every plate was always different.
I wanted to re-read it because I was thinking back to my time at Langton’s with Philippe (Mouchel) where Cecconi’s is now. After Philippe left he went to Sydney and a new chef named Jeremy Strode came along and I was his sous chef. Every day, we would write a new menu. It was chaos. We had the team at eight o’clock, and we have the menu written by nine. By midday, menu ready. Crazy. You couldn’t do that today, but it was a different time back then.
Lastly, what’s your favourite soup?
I love cauliflower. And I’ll pick one from the book. Cauliflower and caramelised parmesan.
The best way to do it is take your cauliflower, clean it all up but don’t take the leaves off. Wash it well, then oil and salt. Sometimes if you like a little bit of icing sugar on the outside. Put it in the oven at about 160 degrees so it really caramelises on the outside and becomes really soft, then take it out, let it cool and then chop the living daylights out of it. Have the sofftritto that we had today but without the carrot, just onion, garlic, cauliflower then a little bit of water. Then we need to boil it, then you can blend it all up.
Then put some parmesan in the oven so it kind of browns and it’s good to go on top.
Give Joe a follow on Instagram, and be sure to pay a visit to Mister Bianco. The food is immaculate, and the storytelling that goes with it is just the cherry on top (of the cassata).