“People are reclaiming things that were
ruined by mass production,” says Mike
Eggert of Sydney’s Pinbone team, who is
about to open a focaccia-forward Italianate
pop-up in Mascot with Jemma Whiteman,
his Pinbone partner.
“We love focaccia,” he says. “But it
still makes me think of this fluffy, white,
bullshit version. That’s everything
focaccia shouldn’t be.”
Eggert and Whiteman first made the
bread at 10 William St, and they’ll be
baking it again when Mr Liquor Dirty
Italian Disco opens this month. They
might enrich the dough with lard and
potato, treat it like bruschetta, serve slices
with ’nduja, or straight-up to tear apart
and load with butter that’s been whipped
with drippings from the wood-fired oven.
“Focaccia fills a niche – it’s got an
amazing texture without being too chewy,
an amazing flavour without being sour,”
says Eggert. “We use a mixture of soft ‘00’
flour, and strong flours – which help the
water absorption – loads and loads of
olive oil on top, which stays in the dough
so you get this chewy, crusty, salty, oily,
fucking sick bread.”
If it sounds bold to open a place
focused on a bread that fell out of favour,
then Fugazza is the boldest, having
opened in 2011 in Melbourne with the
aim of reintroducing the bread to the city.
Their Tuscan-style version is baked crisp,
and not pressed or toasted before being
made into sandwiches. But they’re not
alone. In Adelaide, How the Focaccia
opened last year in Hindmarsh. Back
in Sydney, Dust Bakery sells schiacciata
slick with olive oil and crusted with salt
The team at Porteño launched their
latest venue, Wyno, with a dark loaf thatThe focaccia at
Sydney’s Wyno.sits on the counter, ready to be sliced and
swiped through whipped lard. Chef and
co-owner Elvis Abrahanowicz, who’s done
versions since Bodega opened, thinks a
resurgence is overdue. “I ate plenty of it
in the ’90s, but then you couldn’t get
it for ages,” he says. Wyno’s version is
puffed and thick, an influence from
Argentina. “It’s a bit like a sponge cake,”
says Abrahanowicz. “We cook it quite
hard – it’s got so much fat in it that it
never burns, just goes delicious.”
Focaccia is also in the bread basket
at Neil Perry’s new Sydney outpost of
Melbourne’s Rosetta. Head chef Richard
Purdue tested different flours and oils
before settling on the dough, which is
laced with hojiblanca olive oil and proved
for almost 24 hours: “We knock it back
by prodding it with our fingers, let it
come up again, and then before it goes
in the oven it gets another big dose of
olive oil over the top.”
Salt and rosemary are in the mix, and
it’s topped with oil once more before
heading out to customers. “It’s funny,
when I was talking to people about the
restaurant opening up, and the focaccia,
so many were like ‘Oh, what are you, lost
in the ’90s?’” says Purdue. “Everyone
didn’t realise it was coming back.”
“I think it’s been long enough that
people are willing to give it a go as a bit
of a novelty, and then they go ‘oh, I see,
I see’,” he says. “It’s like flared pants – it’s
been just long enough.”
Mr Liquor Dirty Italian Disco, 952 Botany
Rd, Mascot, NSW; Fugazza, 31 Equitable
Pl, Melbourne, Vic; Wyno, 4/50 Holt St
(enter via Gladstone St), Surry Hills, NSW;
Rosetta, Grosvenor Place, 118 Harrington St,
Sydney, NSW ●comeback
GOURMET TRAVELLER 93