and pecorino melted over finely puréed
tomato sauce rich with puréed garlic.
The starter pizza can be customised
with the likes of fennel salami, pickled
chilli, anchovies and mortadella, or
there are five other pizze, including a
spicy ’nduja number with provolone
piccante or the Soppressata, a lip-
smacking mix of salami, ricotta cream,
fresh mozzarella, caramelised onion
and pickled chilli.
Team a pizza or two with salads such
as fennel, apple and salted ricotta dressed
with apple cider vinegar and wholegrain
mustard, or wild greens – beetroot leaves,
chicory, mustard greens – tossed in a
superb anchovy mayo and topped with
shavings of parmesan. It’s well balanced,
finely tuned stuff.J
ust when you thought
Melbourne’s Italian restaurant
dance card was full, along comes
Capitano. The second venture
from the team behind Bar Liberty
combines a pizza, pasta, parmigiana
menu with a Carlton location and
a room decked out in retro-styled
timber and terrazzo, and manages to
make it fresh. It’s an impressive feat.
What does Capitano add to the
Melbourne Italian conversation? Chef-
owner Casey Wall’s American heritage
for starters. His menu is modelled on the
red-sauce Italian-American food he ate as
a kid. That explains the classic American
vodka tomato sauce tossed with curly,
volcano-shaped vesuvio pasta. The sauce
is made from fresh tomatoes, given
heat with chilli, and richness with butter
and puréed onion. A slug of vodka adds
brightness. It’s skilfully executed comfort
food, the sort that might have you
shovelling it into your mouth as if
you haven’t eaten for a week.
There’s clam sauce, too.
It’s a New York-Italian staple,
though Capitano’s is more
homage than replica. Goolwa
pipis are steamed in white
wine and then tossed through
spaghetti alla chitarra with a
silky sauce of garlic, chilli, pipi
juice, parsley and dashi.Ciao
umami! Remember to order
an extra serve of focaccia forswiping the bowl – the focaccia is made
with the same dough as the pizza, which
is arguably the main event here.
Capitano has a strict policy of no
imported rice, flour or tomatoes, and
the flour in the pizza dough, from South
Australia’s Laucke Flour Mills, does
a great job. Fermented cold for
around 60 hours before being
portioned out and rested for a
further six, the dough is baked
in a stone-floored electric oven.
It emerges with a bready but light
crust, liberally blistered at the
edge with a subtle sourness and
a floppiness that makes folding a
slice in half a breeze.
The pizza list starts with classic
cheese – fresh and aged mozzarella,With retro style andris on classics,
Capitano, from the team behind Bar
Liberty, isn’t your typical red-sauce
joint, writesMICHAEL HARDEN.
Captain
fantastic
Top: Capitano
co-owners
Casey Wall
(from left),
Banjo Harris
Plane and
Michael
Bascetta.
Above: classic
cheese pizza,
and wild
greens with
anchovy and
parmesan.46 GOURMET TRAVELLER
PHOTOGRAPHY GREG ELMS.