From pasta to pancakes – Al Dente takes on breakfast

The owners of Al Dente Enoteca aren’t afraid of change.

Their business, which recently had a party to launch itself as a breakfast venue, has been undergoing near constant evolution over its five-year history.

These days the eatery is well settled into its Nicholson St address and high-end but relaxed reputation, its founder Andrea Vignali, front-of-house head Michelle Badek and executive chef Davide Bonadiman told Inner City News.

Their food is largely contemporary Italian – traditional recipes with a modern twist – using ingredients obtained as locally as possible, Andrea explained.

Around 80 per cent of ingredients are local, sourced with an eye for sustainability.

They include fresh produce from local farms and meats such as duck and 'roo – kangaroo tartare is a signature dish.

The majority of wine on the menu is Australian, with around half of that from Victoria.

For the owners, though, first and foremost is for their customers to feel comfortable and individually “cared for”, they say, and waitstaff will only explain ingredients if they are asked to.

With their restaurant now serving seven days a week, the trio are keen to move on from its being categorised as a COVID-era startup.

Nevertheless, the origin story is a good one and they are happy to tell it.

For one thing it involves romance, and for another, resilience.

When the city shut down in 2020, Andrea – an Italian citizen who had been working as a chef at Grossi Florentino – needed to find an income, and together with his friend and former colleague Davide, started making homemade pasta.

From a cramped house, they moved into a mate’s four-storey pub in town and began doing “fine dining” home deliveries as well.

The business took off, growing to a high point of $40,000 of sales in one day.

“We were feeding hundreds of families a week and we got very busy,” Andrea says.

“We started supporting all the visa holders that couldn't support themselves and all our chef and head-chef friends were then prepping pasta for Al Dente.”

At this point, Michelle met the chefs as a customer.

Impressed by their initiative and unfazed by the $70 minimum order and the fact they had run out of pasta at the time, she put in a request for 2.5kg of mushroom ragu.

While this was way more than she needed, and some of it was probably still in her freezer today, the order turned out to provide “the best return on investment” she had ever had, said Michelle, who has since married Andrea and taken on administrative and front-of-house responsibility for Al Dente.

For his part, Andrea says he and Davide would have got nowhere without his wife’s administrative nouse.

“We always say that we wouldn't be able to send the first email,” he said.

“[We’d be] still there trying to do it – 'how do you apply for the food permit?’”

Since opening as a physical restaurant in 2021 the trio have expanded Al Dente’s eating areas into the Italian delicatessen, Sapori, they established next door.

Last year they tried their hand at running a pizza bar out of an Elgin St laundromat.

After the business got robbed, they shut it and channelled the impulse into weekend breakfasts.

The idea is for “a bit of a fancy breakfast” compared to what else is around, Andrea says.

Also on the breakfast menu – served Friday to Sunday from 8am to 11am – are hash browns and trout, sourdough pancakes and a range of Italian croissants, including Nutella and pistachio cream flavours, along with tiramisu.

Among the drink options – mimosas, espresso martinis, apple juice and ginger tea. •