Stefano Manfredi, 1997

Stefano Manfredi (b. 1954), chef and restaurateur, was introduced to Australian cuisine at the Bonegilla immigration facility in 1960. Coming from a family of exceptionally good cooks in his native Italy, he was unused to the smell of mutton fat and pallid cubes of vegetables floating in water. He opened The Restaurant in Ultimo, Sydney with his mother Franca in 1983. Later renamed Restaurant Manfredi, in 1994 it gained the Sydney Morning Herald's three-hat award. Two years later Manfredi opened bel mondo, which won various best-of awards in the late 1990s. In 2007 he opened Manfredi at Bells at Killcare on the coast north of Sydney, in 2011, Osteria Balla Manfredi at the Star in Pyrmont and in 2014, PizzAperta at the same venue. Maintaining that 'the thing I have over a lot of modern Australian cooks is that I’ve been eating this sort of food ever since I could eat,' Manfredi now communicates about food in Sydney and around the world. His books include bel mondo (2000), Seasonal Italian Favourites (2009), the scholarly Stefano Manfredi’s Italian Food (2013) and New Pizza (2017).

Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Gift of the artist 1999
© Selina Snow