Last orders for Nonna’s ravioli
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For lovers of Briscola Italian’s signature pasta dish—the pumpkin and ricotta ravioli with burnt sage butter—next month signals the end of an era.
Nonna Enza Guglielmin is bowing out of hand-making her delectable dish from scratch, every week, rain, hail or shine.
She is going to take a well-deserved rest.
The 76-year-old mother of restaurant owner Gianni has succumbed to the physical rigours of hand-kneading the dough, rolling the pasta, cutting and cooking the pumpkin, mixing in the right consistency of ricotta and laboriously assembling up to 200 pillows of glorious rich Italian magic each week.
Enza wanted Gianni to have a career in the Public Service but his heart was in the kitchen and a career as a restaurateur won out.
It’s quite a feat.
Since Gianni opened Briscola Italian in the Melbourne Building in Civic, Nonna has supported the restaurant’s success with her own injection of authentic cooking.
For 13 years, she has supplied diners with the perfectly uniform parcels which she prepares from her Queanbeyan home. And heaven help her if the kitchen runs out of orders.
It’s been a way to help Gianni and also to stay connected to community after her husband passed away in 2009.
Enza won’t share all her secrets, but we can reveal that her pumpkin and ravioli mix is given a day or two to dry out. Enza does not tolerate soggy pasta.
Gianni said “mum’s ravioli gives the restaurant its soul and is one of the reasons the restaurant has gone from strength to strength. In August we are temporarily closing for renovations and some all-round zhuzhing. This moment will trigger the effective retirement of my beautiful mum who has lovingly made our ravioli since 2010.”
“Much of my success is owed to what this dish represents and the support she gives my business. It is our signature pasta and brings customers specifically wanting to order it, and causing disappointment when it is sold out. She is also adored by my staff who all affectionately call her Nonna.”
It will be a wrench to leave, but as Nonna rolls out another ball of pasta she rubs her shoulders and says “it’s time”.
Each ravioli is given Enza’s full time and attention.
While head chef Nickolaus Magro Ocaranza has soaked up every word of culinary wisdom Nonna has passed his way over the years, the ravioli recipe has been passed over to pasta specialist Salvatore Costanzo, who sells his hand-made pasta at the Farmer’s Market under the Nonna Maria’s Pasta label.
He has big shoes to fill, but has also attracted a steady fan-base of pasta lovers and the Guglielmins have faith in his abilities.
Gianni says the way his mum cooks is based on heart and instinct.
Having grown up in Sulmona, in the heart of Abruzzo, Enza, her two brothers and younger sister Tina arrived in Canberra in 1956. Dad was a concreter helping build the young city of Canberra, but typical to most Italian migrants, it was her mamma who passed on recipes and held firm to the culinary traditions of home.
“Mum instinctively understands the food, just as her mum did before her. Just looking at a tomato sauce she can see whether it is too watery, whether it needs more oil, and with a small taste she will know what is missing, whether to add sugar or salt. It’s not about cooking to a specific recipe but cooking to instinct.”
After 13 years of producing 200 of these a week, Enza’s arms and shoulders ache. Gianna wants her to take a well-earned rest.
While one would assume Enza would love the idea of her son working in the restaurant industry, she actually aspired for Gianni to have a career in the Public Service.
“He was clever and he was moving up, up, up,” she says.
But a childhood of watching his mum come to life in the kitchen meant Gianni’s bureaucratic life was short-cut and he followed his heart into Belucci’s in Dickson in the late 2000’s.
Buying Briscola Italian in 2010 saw his mum lean into the business and Gianni says it’s been a delight seeing customers react to her food.
“But I know mum has been pushing through the pain and I want her to hang up her rolling pin. She deserves it.”
This may happen to some extent as Nonna stops her famous recipe (we can’t say too much but we did learn some of her secrets and she has tricky ways of ensuring the pumpkin is rich and creamy and never watery, not to mention possessing those deft pasta-shaping moves.)
Drenched liberally with burnt sage butter, these ravioli often sell out. Briscola will be organising a ticketed event so you can have one more plateful if you’re a fan.
But she is not leaving the kitchen altogether. She wants to bake the odd sweet pastry for the restaurant.
“Now I want to get popular with the crostoli!” she says with a giant laugh.
So a little bit of Nonna’s magic will remain when the refreshed and renovated Briscola Italian reopens in August.
A ticketed event: “Last orders for Nonna’s ravioli”, will be held on Sunday 25th June at 12:00pm. See Briscola’s website for details.
