I grew up in pizza bars.
After resettling in Perth WA in the early 1970's, my dad became a cook and worked at Gino's Pizza Bar on Scarborough Beach front. Gino's was located between Red Rooster and Murray Smith's Surf Shop and across from the notorious Scarborough Hotel, a Coffin Cheaters bikers pub with a long domino of Harleys filling the car park and spilling onto the street.
The period is a classic aussie summer spectacle of surfers, bogans, punks, sunbathing babes, skater dudes, and stoners. Continuous circling muscle cars puring around the streets and impressively customized panel vans, all parked on display to a 96FM top 40 soundtrack blasting from beefy car stereos. The smell of frying chips in the air coming from the strip of takeaway burger joints blended with the sound of chiming pinball machines, contrasting with bursts of analog video game sound effects. The aliens landed and the future is now, because I'm sitting in an X-Wing simulator playing Michael Jackson's Thriller on the jukebox with access to unlimited pizza and a bag of 20 cent coins weighing in my jumper pocket.
A mega golden age to be kid growing up on the beach on his BMX.
Some evenings I'd hang out at the pizza shop. Dad, Gino and a couple of Italian blokes would occupy the last bright orange and dark brown booth down the back playing rounds and rounds of Scorpa, a traditional italian card game, swearing under their breath as they slapped down a losing hand. Sometimes fights would break out in the shop between drunks from the pub. That's when the half pool cues came out from under the counter.
Eventually dad opened Scarborough Pizza on Scarborough Beach Rd, in Scarborough and later Miss Rosa's Pizza Bar in Wembley. I worked weekend evenings for a dollar an hour ( I know right), but this is where I began developing my kitchen hand skills and learning responsibility.
By the 80's Dad was the pizza chef at Perth's prestigious Orchid Hotel in the city where they hosted Telethon celebrity dinners who'd sign the back of the chairs including Michael Jackson. International stars stayed there often and dad cooked for Jimmy Barnes, Neil Young and even Pink Floyd.
But the most famous thing they were known for was introducing Perth to cooking with a traditional Italian wood fired oven. Manufactured and imported from Italy and installed in the heart of the city. Dad invented all the original gourmet pizza recipes including his delicious dessert pizzas.
In the 90's he opened Woodpeckers the first gourmet wood fired pizza restaurant based in upper class Subiaco. The place was a great success. I worked as a kitchen hand and my brother was dad's apprentice chef.
Darren developed extraordinary talents for cooking delicious food and later he'd expand his portfolio building ovens privately and commercially.
Dad was even hired to train staff to launch a restaurant in Manila but it didn't work out. I fell back on my kitchen hand skills plenty of times over the years. An efficient dishwasher is the most crucial role after the chef.
Woodpeckers was eventually sold. Dad semi-retired cooking for the in/famous Cafe Sport in Northbridge. Wood fired ovens are popular now, so the next time you eat a wood fired pizza it won't be as good as one of my dads but you can thank Bruno Borgnino for making it all happen.
Credit where credit's due.
