The Enduring Legacy of the Bazzani Family
Ballarat’s Italian migrant population is responsible for much of what has shaped us as a food city. Francesca Carter meets one its pioneers.
On a warm day in 1970, a young couple, Athalie and Luigi Bazzani went to dine at The Hotel Shamrock in Bendigo. At the time, The Shamrock had a reputation as one of the city’s finest restaurants and Luigi, an Italian-born trained chef, was looking forward to the experience.
Six months earlier Athalie – a Bendigo girl – and Luigi had arrived from London where they had met in 1966.
Arriving at the Shamrock’s restaurant at 2pm, the couple were told it was too late for lunch. They could, however, order a salmon salad. Luigi, who had worked as a chef at several of London’s leading hotels, wasn’t too fussed.
“I was thinking perhaps it would be fresh salmon,” said Luigi.
“But all they had done was turn two cans of salmon upside down and served it on a lettuce leaf,” adds Athalie.
The shock of being served a can of salmon was all it took to kickstart Luigi’s path from Italian chef to Australian culinary icon. After lunch, Luigi made an important decision – he was going to open a restaurant right in the heart of Bendigo.
Athalie’s family was well known in Bendigo and owned a derelict corner building which had been in the family since the 1860s. The building was vacant at the time and was waiting for someone to show it a little love. Using the building skills he had learned from his father, Luigi transformed the property into a restaurant,t which they named The Copper Pot.
Drawing on his London restaurant experiences and his time as a first-class dining steward on the Cunard passenger ship The Queen Elizabeth, Luigi brought fine cuisine to regional Victoria. Steak tartare and filet mignon – dishes we consider now as staples at any European bistro – were completely novel at the time. With Athalie running the front-of-house, and Luigi in the kitchen, the restaurant’s reputation soared, and it was booked out for months in advance.
“We had a very good reputation as being one of the best restaurants in regional Australia,” says Luigi.
Athalie adds; “I remember one article described us as ‘an Oasis in a culinary desert’. We had lots of people who would travel to Bendigo just to eat at our restaurant.”
Fate would intervene again, just five years later, when on a rare day off, Luigi and Athalie went for a drive to Ballarat.
“Whenever we would have a day off, we would come here because there were a couple of great restaurants,” says Luigi.
Before lunch, the couple walked around the town’s centre, and noticed a beautiful bluestone building up for sale. And while the building was in a state of disrepair, Luigi was convinced it would make an ideal restaurant site.
“We made an offer on the building before lunch, and then signed it after lunch,” says Athalie.
After purchasing the property, the couple put The Copper Pot site up for lease and invited Angelo, Luigi’s brother to join him in the venture. Angelo, who ran a successful antiques restoration business in Melbourne, was happy to assist in reviving the property.
“It was a massive job,” says Athalie. “It had been abandoned so there was rubbish on every floor.”
While they were cleaning out washing machines, car parts, and other junk, they came across the building’s prized jewel – a 30-foot-tall cast iron spiral staircase, which had been concealed behind panelling. The staircase not only became the building’s central feature, but it also gave the new establishment its name, La Scala.
In an era of causal service, open kitchens and shared plates, it’s hard to imagine the grandeur of eating at a place like La Scala. The award-winning restaurant existed at a time when working front-of-house was seen a respectable career, not just as a temporary gig for university students. And with Melbourne restaurants such as Fanny’s, Two Faces and Stephanie’s constantly raising the bar of restaurant dining, La Scala became an important part of Victoria’s thriving food scene.
Within a couple of years of opening, La Scala had cemented itself as the place to go to for any special occasion - a significant birthday, an anniversary dinner, a proposal.
“Ninety per cent of our clientele was either from Melbourne, Geelong or other parts of Australia,” says Athalie. “People in Ballarat didn’t like to be seen spending money, so they would all go to Melbourne.”
“Slowly slowly this changed, and naturally people in Ballarat became very proud of the restaurant... But it took a while.”
La Scala frequently appeared in magazines and newspapers. It served celebrities, musicians and politicians. In 1981 when the Commonwealth Heads of Government was held in Melbourne, a highlight of the world’s leaders visit was a dinner at La Scala.
“I would often cook at the table, in front of (the diners)” says Luigi. “And people loved it. They had never seen anything like it before.”
While the restaurant was innovative and exciting, it was also steeped in tradition. It became renowned for combining fine Australian regional produce with traditional European techniques.
“My mother was a great cook and taught me lots of things from a very early age,” says Luigi. “She had a big family to feed and so everything was home-grown and produced. That was where I got my pleasure for cooking.”
Equally as important as the food, was La Scala’s ambiance, interior, and service.
Linen dressed tables were softly lit and discreetly and intuitively attended to by wait-staff dressed in perfect three-piece suits. The staff, many of whom would go onto to have their own successful culinary careers, were trained in the art of serving.
In 1976, the Bazzani brothers expanded the operation, and added a nightclub (which could fit 350 patrons), and Victoria’s first wine bar. According to Athalie, some Saturday nights there would be up to 2500 people in the building, and Athalie would organise rosters around 75 staff members schedules.
“It was exhausting,” says Athalie. “We had two children, and if I didn’t have Luigi’s mother living on and off with us during this time, I don’t know what we would’ve done. We lived, ate and breathed restaurants.”
Luigi adds: “We worked very hard to create this beautiful restaurant and we brought competition, which was great because everybody then lifted their game. That’s why Ballarat became home to a lot of good restaurants.”
In 1986, after a successful decade-long run, the Bazzanis sold La Scala. The couple decided they would retire to Warrenmang, a small vineyard Luigi had purchased in the late 70s. The plan was that without the restaurant to run, Luigi would have more time to concentrate on his other passion - making wine.
“When we sold La Scala, we were exhausted and we wanted to take time off and look after the children,” says Athalie.
But their plan was short-lived. Within a couple of years, the Bazzani’s opened up Café Lascelles and Lamby’s Bar in what was Geelong’s National Wool Museum. This was followed by Warrenmang Resort – which included a 100-seat restaurant, guest accommodation, as well as function and conference facilities.
Today, almost a half a century later, the Bazzani’s have finally retired – they sold Café Lascelles in 2000, and Warrenmang in 2017. Last year the pair were presented with the “keys” to the city by the former City of Ballarat Mayor Samantha McIntosh. The keys are a symbolic recognition of the pair’s contribution to Ballarat’s hospitality scene.
The keys add to the Bazzani’s exhaustive list of awards and tributes, which includes The Age’s Special Annual Award for Excellence (1999), Legends of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival (2009), and an Order of Australia Medal for Luigi (2014).
And while it may be an end of an era for the Bazzanis, their legacy in Australia’s food and wine industry will live on for years to come.
The Bazzani’s story is just one of the many fascinating chapters featured in La Nostra Storia – the Story of Italians in Ballarat, a new book published by the Ballarat Italian Association.
Written by author and journalist Jan McGuinness, the book skilfully weaves the stories of more than fifty individual settlement experiences from the Eureka Rebellion to late 20th century.
The book is the brainchild of Chez Dichiera, who is the president of BIA.
“When it comes to food, architecture or infrastructure the Italians have made such an impact on Ballarat over the past 150 years. We wanted their stories to be told.”
Spread over 200 pages, the stories feature a vast collection of photography and original documents such as letters, newspaper clippings, plans and maps. Last month, the book was awarded the Cultural Diversity Award in the 2019 Victorian Community History Awards.