Mietta

When Stefano Manfredi emailed the news of Mietta's shocking death, I was on a long trip through several continents. Mietta and I had spoken on the phone the day before I left, and the distance and the isolation of travelling made it even harder to take in this utterly unlikely news. Every time I went to a new place to eat, I went on making mental notes for an hypothetical report. The report was addressed to Mietta, and I was copying what I'd observed of her own approach to restaurant eating, trying to be meticulous, professional, reflective. A solitary meal became a conversation with Mietta about what was on the table. I'd been copying her ever since I'd known her, putting a brake on a headlong greedy style of long standing. Then the shock would come again. Mietta wasn't there to report to.

It wasn't long we knew each other - terribly short - but it felt long. Stefano had introduced us at his restaurant bel mondo in Sydney and I wrote a jacket comment on Mietta's Italian Family Recipes - an unpretentious and down to earth title for a wonderful seamless blend of Italian cooking and Australian social history, a book that will be useful and delightful for ever. She and Tony and I had meals together in Melbourne and Sydney. The meals were always fun, but from time to time I'd catch the pale and anxious face of a distinguished restaurateur looking on from a distance as Mietta sipped or nibbled, paused and almost imperceptibly jotted a few words in a tiny notebook she'd slipped out. The restaurateurs knew Mietta knew her kitchen business, that for ages she'd run one of the country's best restaurants - 'Mietta's' of course - that she cared about the details and played no favourites.

There won't be another book like Family Recipes, but Tony's brave decision to keep Mietta's Best Australian restaurants going means her presence will go on being felt. And the guide has always been a shared effort, the pooled reports of a great network of Mietta's and Tony's friends and informants, people who care about what they eat. Mietta's will keep us together, give us somewhere to send our opinions and discoveries, keep us in touch with serious standards, keep Mietta around.

Peter Robb

©Peter Robb 2001