Peppina

Peppina is the Italian restaurant of The Tasman hotel in central Hobart, a short walk from Salamanca Place. Its cooking follows the home recipes of the chef's Neapolitan family.

Massimo Mele, the hotel's culinary director, spent his early childhood in Naples before his family moved to Hobart. He first wanted to name the restaurant Maria's, after his mother Maria, but another place in Hobart already used that name, so he chose the name of her mother instead: Peppina, his grandmother. Mele says his mother's cooking made him the chef he is. Her style is casalinga, homely and gentle, based on slow work and on vegetables from her own garden.

Those recipes shape the menu. Pasta is made by hand, sauces cook slowly and greens are stewed the way they were at home. Mozzarella comes on a bed of braised bitter greens rather than with the usual prosciutto, because that is how his mother served it. Paccheri Genovese is a dense ragù of wagyu beef shin and pork belly, and lamb rump comes with steamed baby chard, tomatoes and olives. Most of the produce comes from Tasmania, and displays of it stand in the dining room.

The Tasman joins three eras of building in one hotel: Georgian heritage houses from the 1840s, an Art Deco wing and modern architecture. Peppina fills a large room with more than 100 seats, yet Mele is in the restaurant most days of the week and cooks on several nights, checking the pasta and the produce displays himself. Much of what his mother grows in her garden still finds its way into the restaurant's seasonal cooking.