SINGAPORE, Oct 8 — A dish of duck breast served with heirloom carrots, where the meat is aged for seven days before getting slow-cooked over the grill, might not sound particularly Italian.
But judging by how hard it is to get a reservation at one-month-old Italian hotspot Braci in Boat Quay, it is clear that diners want to experience serial restauranteur Beppe De Vito’s vision.
Braci makes a statement on how sophisticated the local Italian food scene and diners are today. The scene is diverse as well. Celebrity chefs such as Mario Batali and Jamie Oliver have set up shop; you have Italian restaurants that specialise in food from specific regions (Peitrasanta for example); Italian food can be found in the heartlands (PocoLoco in Ang Mo Kio comes to mind); and once-niche products such as burrata or artisanal wood-fire pizza are now not only easily available at restaurants, you can buy them from gourmet delis and take them home.
But you know, it was not that long ago when the only thing we knew about Italian food was spaghetti. We speak to four of the earliest players in the market who have helped to pave the way.
A burata contadina appetiser from Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore. ― Picture courtesy of Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore
Fresh pasta for all
Fresh pasta is almost ubiquitous these days. But in the late 1980s, you could only taste fresh pasta at expensive and stuffy Italian restaurants in five-star hotels.
That is until Carecci Salvatore, owner of 29-year-old Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore, burst onto the scene. Noticing the gap in the market for affordable and authentic Italian fare, he came up with the crazy idea to introduce freshly made pasta to the masses.
Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore was not intended to be a restaurant. In the beginning, it retailed a variety of freshly made pasta to homemakers. However, because Singaporeans were only familiar with spaghetti, they were reluctant to try other types of pasta.
To overcome that, Salvatore would cook samples using his fresh pasta for customers. These samples were an instant hit — customers started requesting to dine in and his first restaurant along Bukit Timah Road was born.
He came up with a flexible menu that allowed the customer to mix and match as they see fit, making it a fun and unintimidating dining experience. It had 16 types of pasta and 21 sauces, giving the customer up to 330 possible variations of pasta dishes — the largest selection in a menu at the time.
Today, Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore has three branches, and the menu includes an extensive array of appetisers, main courses and pizzas. But the philosophy of the business has not changed — to make authentic Italian fare affordable and accessible. "There are no hard and fast rules in Italian cuisine. You enjoy it the way you want to.”
Pasta Fresca Da Salvatore
77 Upper East Coast Road #01-01/02. Tel: 6241 5560; Blk 833 #01-02/03 Royalville, Bukit Timah Road. Tel: 6469 4920; 30 Boat Quay. Tel: 6532 6283
Do you still remember the first Da Paolo Ristorante Italiano that opened at Neil Road in 1989? ― Picture courtesy of Da Paolo
Taking a piece of Italy home
In 1989, Da Paolo was a modest, family-run, 10-table small trattoria in Chinatown. Paolo Scarpa and his aunt ran the kitchen, Paolo’s wife Judie tended to the customers, and for as long as Francesca — the current head of products and marketing for the Da Paolo group who is also their elder daughter — can remember, she was helping out at the restaurant.
It is a charming story of success especially when you consider how huge the still-family-run Da Paolo group is today. It includes Da Paolo Bistro Bar, Da Paolo Pizza Bar, a catering arm and gourmet deli and cafe Gastronomia.
Despite its growth, the motivations are no different from the day a husband and wife team decided to open a small trattoria — to bring an Italian way of life to Singapore.
Transporting Italy to Singapore was no easy feat. As Francesca shares, even something considered basic by today’s standards, such as a proper expresso, was hard to find. The couple decided to import all kinds of never-before-seen products to Singapore, such as Italian expresso, Italian liquor and Panettone (traditional Italian Christmas cake), and insisted on making their pasta and sauces from scratch.
Even small details such as the decor of the first restaurant were not spared — much like walking into a typical dining room in Italy, it was furnished with Italian curtains and paintings, and an antipasti table in the centre of the restaurant.
The local expats who were hungry and deprived of a taste of home lapped it up, but it would take years for Da Paolo to build a local customer base. As more Italian restaurants opened in Singapore, and locals became more exposed to the cuisine, it seemed intuitive they take the ethos of the brand further by starting a gourmet deli that allowed people to take an authentic taste of Italy home.
"With Gastronomia, we introduced people to the idea of having the same high-quality food you would normally expect from high-end restaurants to take home. It was a novel concept, but it was a huge hit from the start because we were providing convenience and quality,” Francesca said.
Considering how consumers today have a deeper appreciation for gourmet and artisan food, a niche deli such as Gastronomia was ahead of its time. And with the largest one set to open in Raffles City in November, it is fair to say that the demand for a taste of Italy within the comforts of our homes is still going strong.
Gabriel Fratini of Domvs said he was probably the first to serve tiramisu in Singapore. ― TODAY pic
Italian food 101
When you think of a quintessentially Italian dessert, tiramisu probably comes to mind. Well, Gabriel Fratini, owner and head chef of DOMVS By Gabriel Fratini, wants to lay claim that he was the first to make it famous in Singapore.
This says a lot about how primitive the Italian food scene was when Fratini first came to Singapore in 1988 to helm DOMVS at Sheraton Towers, arguably one of the finest and priciest places for Italian food at the time.
Since the start of his career in Singapore, Fratini has eschewed an a la carte menu for an omakase menu that changes daily depending on what he finds at the local markets. While that might not be a new concept today, it was a daring one back in the late 1980s.
There was always the risk that locals perceived an Italian restaurant without the perfunctory spaghetti Bolognese or lasagne as inauthentic. Flavour profiles such as spicy food or even the use of seemingly more "Asian” ingredients such as pork ribs were misconstrued as Fratini’s attempts to localise Italian flavours. That is why he believes a tasting menu works. With each visit, diners are exposed to a variety of dishes. This provides opportunities for Fratini to explain his dishes and for diners to learn new things about the cuisine. For example, some customers are, to this day, surprised to find out that his tiramisu does not contain any alcohol. This is when Fratini explains that it is true to the original recipe that can be traced back to Veneto, Italy, in the 1960s.
Fratini also argues that an omakase-style menu is true to the essence of Italian cooking — the use of fresh and local produce, not the token use of Italian ingredients. While he imports cheese and tomatoes from Italy, he gets almost everything else from local markets.
"Italian ingredients don’t make Italian food. Even with famous items like Parma ham — we won’t have it unless we’re in Parma. We’ll always go for the local ham. Similarly, I adopt an intuitive approach to my food — what’s fresh is best. Why import seabass when I can get amazing local seabass easily?”
DOMVS by Gabriel Fratini
Sheraton Towers, 39 Scotts Road.
Tel: 6839-5622
Beppe De Vito takes the reins personally in the kitchen of Braci. ― Picture courtesy of ilLido Group
More than a trattoria
Beppe De Vito might have arrived in Singapore later than Salvatore and Fratini, but since being part of the opening team of the now-defunct Bice at Goodwood Park Hotel in 1995, his impressive resume that includes starting Garibaldi, Forlino, ilLido, Aura and most recently, Braci, leaves few to refute that he was, and continues to be, a driving and creative force in the contemporary Italian-dining scene.
Back in the 1990s, De Vito was not just concerned with how people perceived the food. He wanted to create new dining experiences that subverted stereotypes of an Italian restaurant. He recalled that Bice’s success showed there was an untapped market in Singapore at that time for high-end and high-quality Italian dining, while Garibaldi’s posh and discreet ambience made it a popular dining destination for a big date.
"My experience in Singapore also taught me a lot about the locals’ dining habits and patterns. In a way, both of those elements — combined with my past restaurant experiences in Europe — formed my ‘signature’ as a restaurateur and entrepreneur,” said De Vito.
For example, with his first independent venture ilLido, his aim was to show that an Italian restaurant does not have to be a small place that is just about the food. "ilLido was the restaurant with the largest bar and outdoor dining in Singapore, and it became a place where people of all ages came for a night out — not just for dinner. Ambience, service and attention to detail are just as important,” De Vito said.
The truffle risotto from ilLido in 2005 probably popularised this dish in Singapore. ― Picture courtesy of ilLido Group
Local diners might have become savvier over the years, but De Vito continues to innovate. With &SONS, he proved that even a time-tested concept such as a trattoria can be different by venturing into home-cured meat, and demonstrated that quality Italian wine can be affordable. With Aura, he raised the bar for the scale of an Italian restaurant, combining multi-concepts such as a Mediterranean salad bar and upscale Italian dining into one coherent product.
Now with his latest baby Braci, it is clear De Vito has new concepts to add to an already-crowded Italian food scene. "Stiff competition pushes restaurant owners to get out of their old stick-in-the-mud ways, and offer more variety and creativity.”
www.il-lido.com ― TODAY
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