Marchetti's Latin
March 1997
Update
Marchetti's Latin, Marchetti's Tuscan Grill and Marchetti's pasta factory all closed in the wake of the WorldTrade Centre bombing in September 2001
Marchetti's Latin and Bill Marchetti's many other ventures are a great success story. With two Melbourne restaurants (and one at the Casino bearing his name) management of another in Cairns and a fast growing food manufacturing business, Bill is a busy man.
He has just come back from a tour to Italy, is working with William Angliss Corporation at setting up an International Institute of Food and Beverages and will soon be returning to his birthplace, Munich, as a guest cook.
But less than ten years ago, he was struggling.
Bill and his first wife, Cheryl, took over The Latin in 1984 (the same year Mietta's came to Alfred Place) and faced a real battle.
Well, after 5 years, I was an overnight success. This was, (something) you only do it once in your life. The place was a dump, it was just horrific, so run down . . . then after about 5 years, we got a little bit of money together to renovate.
Business was just terrible. We were the emptiest Italian restaurant in the country I think. Couldn't get it past 250 covers at one stage a week, it was just push, push, push, because the place looked like a dump. Then we renovated and then it just happened.
Business now at Marchetti's Latin is mainly night time. So Bill has been trying out a special Sunday lunch. For anyone who wants to try a range of Marchetti's food it's ideal. For just $30 you can choose from a selection of Antipasto and then sit down and food just keeps on coming -- pastas, risotto, fish, chicken, pretty much until you say basta meaning enough!
Bill Marchetti is a generous, expansive host. He simply loves food. The passion for quality fresh food was learnt from his father, Guiseppe Marchetti, and his work at the Central Market in Munich, through which passed the finest of Europe's fruit and vegetables. When the family moved back to Italy, he worked in the kitchen of a hotel in San Benedetto del Tronto and became used to the freshest of fish. We'd go to the big fish market right on the wharf, only buy what was still flapping, cook it, eat what wasn't sold and the next day, start again from scratch.
The Marchettis received a big shock on arriving in Melbourne. Bill still shudders, the food was horrible, shocking, totally the opposite to what I was used to. He found a job as a 14 year old apprentice in the kitchen at Florentino's, Melbourne's most famous restaurant of the time. It was a busy place but after a year he wondered if it was where he wanted to be, I actually cornered the chef one day and said, look I hope you don't take this the wrong way - but do you think I'll ever become a chef working in a place like this. Thank god he took it well and he said - well you know - this is Australia and this is the standard. If you don't like it, change it. So I thought, yep this is good advice - no I don't like it and YES I will do my bit towards changing it.
From there it was into the wilderness basically, there was only one menu in town at that stage and that was the Florentino menu that every one did in varying degrees of badness
So a variety of jobs followed until Bill worked with Claude and Michel Kerlero deRosbo. Their simple La Cuisine Bourgeoisie was fantastic. Tony (Knox) and I were amongst its regulars. We loved its simple strong flavours and remember very well the excellent pates and terrines and fromage de tête which Claude made. In fact we had plans to use the next-door fish and shop beside our original restaurant to market the charcuterie. But Cuisine Bourgeois closed and Bill went to work at Rogalsky's for two years, during which time he went back to Germany and then left to become head chef at Louey's, an exciting time basically, when all the new ingredients were coming in and everybody was demanding them. I loved it. But in 1983 it was sold and I was looking for somewhere of my own. Marchetti's Latin opened the following year. Thirteen years later, renovated and successful, Bill is planning to consolidate in Lonsdale St.
We are going next door, in September, making a bar, for about 50 with simple, inexpensive food, $10 pasta, glass of wine, it's got to appeal to the people who have an hour for lunch.
Aside from the new bar, not yet named, Bill has no immediate plans out of Melbourne.
I am thinking of my financial future more in regards to the pasta factory, in food manufacturing generally. I don't need to open any more restaurants to make money. It would just be a headache.
Mietta O'Donnell
Published 18/3/97 in the Herald Sun Food & Drink Supplement
©Mietta's 1997