Maurizio Restaurant & Events Catering

A Taste of Italy

Maurizio restaurant is a fine dining experience with the kind of warmth and passion for flavour that Italians are famous for.

Maurizio Di Ciano says he aims to maintain an intimate feel about the restaurant and that he loves it when new clientele are introduced to the place by their friends - rather than being people who just happen to be walking by looking for a quick meal.

While sitting at a corner table and enjoying several courses over several hours on a rainy afternoon, we had a chance to see Maurizio and his team in action.

In terms of décor and ambiance, the room is spacious with high ceilings and warm but neutral colours. Classical music plays softly in the background and the tables are decorated with real roses and crisp white linen with sparkling glass and silverware.

The artwork on the walls is stunning and the waiters, formally dressed, move between the tables, top up glasses and take orders, and chat with the diners in English and Italian. Maurizio himself also makes a point of talking to the clientele, visiting the tables, meeting people and discussing the food and wines.

Asked to describe the menu, Maurizio explains: "We like to keep it simple. It covers the basics - fresh home made pasta, traditional white and red meat such as spatchcock, rabbit, goat and duck and something vegetarian - but most people simply ask me. They come in and say 'Maurizio look after us', and that's what we do. We talk to them about what they like and don't like and what was best in the market that day and we make something special for them."

It is this approach that gives the place its warm and friendly feel.

Maurizio has been in love with the restaurant business for a long time. His history with it stretches back to Lanciano, the town in Italy he grew up in and where he started clearing tables and washing dishes when he was ten years old. When he was 14 and choosing which school to go on to, his father surprised him by taking him to a hospitality college that offered training in restaurants in Venice , Milan, Rome and London.

What he learnt there he has practiced and expanded on in the intervening years. He's been in Australia for 11 years and in 2001 responded to a request from the Italian Club to take over running the restaurant, an establishment that already had 45 years of history and a loyal clientele.

Since then the restaurant has moved from the back to the front of the building and it's been substantially redecorated, but the regular clientele are still with him. He says: "They still love the place. It still feels like home to them."

Maurizio is emphatic that this restaurant is about a lot more than just food - and he doesn't mean the wine that he so wisely selects to complement each dish. The way he puts it: "People come out to dinner not just to have some food, they come out to have an occasion and to be part of something bigger."

This thinking underpins the five course regional dinners he hosts every second Saturday night that give diners the opportunity to tour the regional cuisine of Italy and to develop a sense of the regions' distinct flavours.

If five courses sounds overwhelming, don't be dismayed. Maurizio explains that real Italian cuisine has nothing to do with massive dishes of pasta. At this restaurant pasta features as small entrée servings only.

Maurizio says: "The pasta should be at the beginning of the meal when you are hungry, and then only about 100grams, because a normal human being can't burn more than that. Filling yourself up with 200grams of pasta is an American thing, it's not the way it's done in Italy."

At this restaurant it's not only about what you eat but how you eat it, and slowly is the recommended method. As well as being an active supporter of slow food (and the international anti-fast food movement) the restaurant is also still very much a part of Perth 's Italian community.

The art on the walls is a continually changing exhibition of paintings by local and Italian artists and the pieces are for sale, which means that regular diners also get to experience the evolution of the restaurant's collection.

Art and culture aside though, the primary focus of the Maurizio experience is taste, and during the course of our pleasant few hours of conversation amongst ourselves, with Maurizio and (towards the end of the afternoon) with the people from the next table, we tasted many delights so sensational that our conversations stopped and we fell momentarily under their trance.

These included the exquisite tanginess of the cheese and mint in our Ravioloni entrée. It combined perfectly with a very green extra virgin olive oil and the choice of a young Pinot Grigio wine created a fantastic flavour harmonic.

Then there was fresh Pemberton trout that had been cured for 24 hours in fennel and black pepper, tasty on its own but sublime alongside the soft flavour of a Two Oceans Sauvignon Blanc.

And on it went until we were savouring Cointreau-soaked flambéed strawberries with a divine Muscat.

It was such a satisfying whole dining experience that my recommendation is that you keep this restaurant a secret. Perhaps just turn up as a couple sometime to meet Maurizio and get to know the place and then next time you really need to dazzle someone special or a larger group with a meal that is much more than just a plate of food, you'll know exactly where to find it ;)

By Kayt Davies

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