TUTTI a mangiare!
The Sunraysia region has a plethora of amazing produce that owners of The Italian, Sandra Imbesi and Brad Fyfe, use to make their twice monthly Banchetto.
Banchetto is a six-course Southern Italian style dinner banquet held during July, August and September.
It’s accompanied by Italian style wines from local growers Chalmers, with a touch of the old country like San Daniele prosciutto from northern Italy and parmigiano cheese from Parma.
The menu, inspired by Mildura’s local produce and Imbesi’s family recipes from Calabria and Sicily, is prepared fresh on the day and accompanied by cannoli and tiramisu, washed down with a ‘digestivo’- an espresso with grappa, amaro or limoncello.
Italians believe they help with digestion.
Fyfe, who has 38 years of restaurant experience and has worked with Stefano Di Pieri, said the inspiration for Banchetto came from a number of ideas.
“My background is restaurants and when I moved to Mildura and worked with Stefano, I really enjoyed doing banquets with him, plus some good quality Italian restaurants have closed down so we saw an opportunity,” he said.
“We started Banchetto in May last year after a ladies food and wine day, and in the last four months it’s been on every fortnight.”
Imbesi, who started in the industry making sourdough for her children then progressing to selling panzerotti, arancini and pre-packed cold meats at Red Cliffs market, said a lot of the produce they use is seasonal and sourced locally.
“We use olives and chillies from our homes, and we got lemons to make lemon tarts and stinging nettles for ricotta and cannelloni from our neighbours,” she said.
“The San Daniele and provolone are from Italy, but we have good relationships with local growers and even kids from the senior college grow our vegetables, with tomatoes from Red Cliffs.
“We use a local olive oil when we can and my auntie makes capers; we use whatever is in season and available.”
Wine for the banquets are sourced from Chalmers in Merbein and even they are something people won’t find at Dan Murphy’s.
“We had tourists come in once and say they’d had the Chalmers wines but they hadn’t tried any of the ones we were serving as they’re made specifically for us,” Imbesi said.
“We also have wines from Sicily and the Riverland, it’s either local or Italian.”
Fyfe said the menus change regularly for Banchetto and as everything is made from scratch, it can take a couple of days to prepare everything.
“We are having ox tail ravioli and the sauce is an old family recipe with garlic, olive oil and salt,” he said.
“Our apple and radicchio risotto is topped with crispy pancetta which we made,” Ms Umbesi added.
“We’ve even made quail and rabbit tortellini, and as it’s a set menu people eat things they wouldn’t normally try but if they don’t like it there’s always the next course.”
The next Banchetto is Saturday, July 19 and the offering is available every fortnight until September 27.
