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Each morning, Funghi e Tartufo owner-chef Alessandra D’Angelo arrives before everyone else. She makes a cream for the pasta, mixes the meatballs, and prepares the swordfish and barramundi – all plant-based, all made using recipes she developed after moving with her two children to Australia from Palermo, Italy, in 2009.
Funghi e Tartufo is D’Angelo’s third vegan restaurant in Melbourne, named after the signature dish – a mushroom and truffle pappardelle – served at her previous venture, Osteria Italiana. That dish makes a comeback here, along with other plant-based recreations of classic Sicilian fare.
You might start with some antipasti, followed by lemon-pepper calamari fritti; “barramundi” in a tomato, caper and green olive sauce; or potato gnocchi spun with mushroom bolognese. For dessert, it might be chocolate cheesecake or hazelnut gelato.
The wine list is similarly thoughtful, favouring biodynamic and organic drops sourced from Italy. Cocktails are suitably Italian, which means you can pair your pasta with a Negroni, Aperol Spritz or amaro.
Situated in a converted 19th-century warehouse on Hardware Lane, the space has more old-school charm than some of the other Italian joints in the area. Think white tablecloths, ornamental wine barrels and a vinyl-wrapped bar guarding the cellar. Like any good trattoria, there’s plenty of outside seating for taking in the hum of the laneway on a Saturday night.
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Let's get wild today. Just pretend you are a whisper floating across a mountain. It's important to me that you're happy. Maybe we got a few little happy bushes here, just covered with snow. You can bend rivers. But when I get home, the only thing I have power over is the garbage. Let's make some happy little clouds in our world.
See. We take the corner of the brush and let it play back-and-forth. Sometimes you learn more from your mistakes than you do from your masterpieces. Almost everything is going to happen for you automatically - you don't have to spend any time working or worrying. All those little son of a guns. Isn't it fantastic that you can change your mind and create all these happy things?
You can create beautiful things - but you have to see them in your mind first. Don't fiddle with it all day. Don't forget to tell these special people in your life just how special they are to you. Let's put some happy little clouds in our world.
The man who does the best job is the one who is happy at his job. I'm going to mix up a little color. We’ll use Van Dyke Brown, Permanent Red, and a little bit of Prussian Blue. Those great big fluffy clouds. There we are. Everything's not great in life, but we can still find beauty in it.
Brown is such a nice color. Clouds are free. They just float around the sky all day and have fun. Learn when to stop. You can't have light without dark. You can't know happiness unless you've known sorrow.
A little happy sunlight shining through there. Get tough with it, get strong. We'll make some happy little bushes here. A fan brush can be your best friend.
