The team at Alta Trattoria never expected to have to find a new chef. But when chef and founding partner McKay Wilday decided to leave the industry, co-founders James Tait, Luke Drum and Carlo Grossi were suddenly on the hunt.
Alta opened on Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in 2023, with a focus on Piedmont. It showcased Wilday’s mastery of Piedmontese cuisine through regional dishes such as agnolotti del plin (small stuffed pasta) and vitello tonnato (sliced veal with creamy tuna sauce).
Now, with new chef and partner Matteo Tine, the team has turned the space into a Sicilian restaurant and renamed it Cantina Moro. “We’re kind of running from our trattoria right into this,” says Tait. (Alta had its last service on Sunday August 31; and Cantina Moro opens tonight).
Most recently, Tine was the executive chef and creative director at Orlo, a Collingwood restaurant co-owned by Carlo, who Tine also worked with for 13 years at Carlo’s father Guy Grossi’s restaurant Grossi Florentino.
Tine is Sicilian on both sides, and grew up eating the flavours of the Mediterranean island. “When I think of Italian food, I think of Sicilian food,” he says. Right now, his dishes are particularly inspired by his paternal grandmother, who passed away a few months ago. He says his cooking is about trying to “chase that feeling” that came from eating her food – “that’s the last part of her I’ve got.”
Two of her dishes appear on the Moro menu are pasta di casa with pork ragu, and cotoletta alla palermitana, a crumbed and baked veal cutlet (Tine’s nonna used chicken). For dessert, there’s the torta di Paolo, named for Tine’s father. His family would make the dessert of chocolate, custard, cinnamon and Amara-soaked biscuits every Easter, using leftover chocolate.
Tine says the food at Moro is more about the Sicilian cuisine his grandparents were eating in the 1960s before they moved to Australia, rather than what’s happening on the island today. Cooking such personal food is “kind of letting your heart outside of your chest,” says Tine. And the result is “soulful – and touches on rustic – but definitely lifted, a little bit elegant and just very smart,” says Tait.
While Alta was known for its collection of Piedmontese wines, the Moro cellar leans Sicilian. Tait has added more carricante and volcanic wines from Mount Etna to the list. There’s marsala, Sicilian Negronis, Orange Martinis and spritzes served in slightly kitsch-in-a-good-way Birra Messina beer glasses. The team hopes people will drop in and sit at the bar – newly adorned with blue and white tiles and the restaurant’s namesake Sicilian Moor’s head vases – for a drink and a daily changing plate of antipasti, featuring house-made cheese, preserves and cured meats.
Structurally, the restaurant is the same, but the front room has been painted a terracotta orange with a bright painting depicting Sicilian lemons.
Cantina Moro
274 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
03 9417 0526
Hours:
Tue to Thu 5.30pm–11pm
Fri to Sun midday–2.30pm; 5.30pm–11pm
cantinamoro.com
@cantinamoro
Dining and Cooking