In the backyard of a brown brick Fitzroy North house, under the shade of a fig and a lemon tree, Hamish Vaccari is picking up from where his grandparents left off more than 50 years ago. What was once the headquarters of his grandparents' food business is today Nonna's House, serving up Italian subs "as authentic as you can get".
But it wasn't always this way. Hamish was working as a swimming-pool technician when the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
"I lost my job at the very start of COVID, and I was trying to come up with ideas to make a living," Hamish tells SBS Food. "My Nonno was a professional chef and he [ran] a catering business from this house. The kitchen I use today was his kitchen."
From 1945 till 1970, Pasqualino Vaccari and his wife, Giuseppina, catered food in their garage for the family celebrations of paesanis' (other Italian-born people).
Today, Hamish lives in the house where paintings of his grandfather's birthplace (a little town in Calabria on the southern tip of Italy) still hang on the walls just above his collection of contemporary vinyls. Time may have worn the sofa, but the recipes are the same, even though they've never been written down.
"The meatballs are still made by taste," says Vincent Vaccari, Hamish's father, who helps to run Nonna's House and make sure the subs are seasoned with a generous dose of nostalgia.
The meatballs are still made by taste.
"On Sundays, I used to help my father in the kitchen when he was making the mixture for the mazzacaneri (cannonballs, in Calabrian dialect)," Vincent says. "This is how he called meatballs because if they are not made properly, they can be just as hard."
The signature sub at Nonna's House is the meatball, but the pesto mushroom and the eggplant parmigiana subs are a must-try.
On the side, diamond-cut fries are powered up with Nonno's Bolognese sauce or a rich carbonara topping.
The kitchen is stocked like every other home in the neighbourhood. It has meat from the local butcher, cheeses from a niche distributor in Heidelberg in northeast Melbourne, and fresh bread from a local Italian institution, Piedimonte's Supermarket.
"Hamish always had his hands in food. I used to catch him when he was little with his hands in the oil to his elbow, trying to get to the sun-dried tomatoes," Vincent says.
"There is romance involved in all of it because food embraces most of the senses. Our family wasn't born into cooking, but we now have a legacy of more than 50 years into it."
Pasqualino Vaccari arrived in Australia from Calabria in 1938. Vincent says, "He used to say they were lucky they had some stale bread and some olive oil growing up, which to me was ironic because, in his cool room, he used to have all sorts of food."
Hamish and Vince Vaccari with dog Chef during a break from the weekly food preparation. Source: Vincent Vaccari
Our family wasn't born into cooking, but we now have a legacy of more than 50 years into it.
The family's three-generations food journey started by chance.
"At 16, my father was working as a cook apprentice at a local eatery when some friends suggested checking an Italian restaurant in town that was looking for staff. He did not know the city too well and went through the wrong door."
Pasqualino ended up in the kitchen of the old Menzies Hotel, which opened in 1867 and was demolished in 1969.
"The chef back [when Pasqualino worked there], François Martin, asked if he was there for a dishwashing job, but he replied, 'No, I want to cook'. He was a very stubborn Italian, and he ended up working there for six years."
Pasqualino was the breakfast chef of well-known American military leader General Douglas MacArthur's at the Menzies, Vincent says. "To me, my father held to win the Second World War in the Pacific," he jokes.
Today, Hamish's uncle, Patrick Vaccari, who worked as a professional chef for over 40 years, helps in the kitchen.
Setting up for a wedding reception at the Royal Melbourne Ballroom (now Melbourne Exhibition Building). Vincent Vaccari is at the front wearing a chef's apron. Source: Vincent Vaccari.
Uncle Patrick remembers the old times: "Fun days, making meatballs and salsicce (sausages) with my dad," he says. "My mum used to start cooking the chicken on Fridays, for the weddings on Sundays. And I am back here today, doing the same: cooking with my family."
On the first day that Nonna's House opened, everything was sold out in less than two hours.
Hamish says, "We opened at 11:00 [and] we were sold out by 12:30."
It's currently only open on Saturdays and Sundays, but the Vaccari trio is getting ready to open more days of the week from February 2023.
Saturday-Sunday: 11am - 3:30pm
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