Alessandra Papazzo is a woman of many talents. Cooking is one of them.
She also has a degree in foreign languages, played competitive volleyball for a decade, studied journalism in London, enjoys painting and playing the piano, travelled the world as an executive assistant and event planner for Google, practices yoga, and is a florist and restaurateur.
But it's cooking that grounds her and brings her joy.
"I love it. It's a meditation for me," she says. "It's a form of art. It allows me to channel my energy and create in a different way."
Alessandra operates a pop-up restaurant called Osteria Papazzo with her husband Christian and son Marley which takes over the kitchen at Talulah, The Junction, on Friday nights. She cooks authentic dishes from her home city of Naples in Italy, drawing on family recipes and skills handed down through the generations.
Visiting Osteria Papazzo last week, I tried the vannella burrata with homemade oregano focaccia and manuka honey; the ditalini pasta with slow-cooked wagyu sausage beef ragu and pecorino; the bucatini pasta with zucchini, vannella smoked buffalo mozzarella provola and parmiggiano; and the homemade eggplant pickles.
This is authentic, rustic Italian at its simplistic best. Honest flavours elevated by hints of smoke. Delicious.
On Saturday, March 16, Osteria Papazzo makes its debut at Moor in Newcastle East. The menu is something unique to Newcastle: Neapolitan fried pizzas and meatball panini.
"It's something delicious that I would like to introduce here in Newcastle. I feel like there is a space for that here," she says.
Alessandra grew up in Naple's historic city centre. Her family still lives there, and her closest friends, but she chose to travel the world, working and studying along the way. She says cooking "was always there, on the side" and it took her many years to realise it was a passion that could double as a career.
"I come from a family of cooks and chefs. Not my mum, she was a terrible cook, but my grandma was an amazing cook and two of my aunties," Alessandra says.
"The women in Napoli used to sell fried Neapolitan pizza from what we call bassi - they're like units or apartments, one room, on the ground floor.
"Our fried pizza was born after the second World War. There was no possibility of cooking pizza in wood-fired ovens because they had been destroyed in the war. To make a living for the family, they became very popular.
"Fried calzone is big in Napoli but there's only about one or two older ladies still selling it and fried pizza from the bassi, and for me it's sad because this is not being passed down generations, it's disappearing. You have pizzerias doing it but not the ladies selling from their homes."
When Alessandra was 16 her boyfriend's mother taught her how to make pizza dough.
"She was an amazing cook and she saw my desire, my passion, my love for what she was doing and we started cooking together.
"At first I was making a lot of pizza, focaccia and cakes. Every week. And I just kept cooking, all around the world. I would cook for friends and organise supper clubs wherever I was living. In Milan, London, India, Sri Lanka, I'd be styling the tables, designing the flowers and the menus, cooking.
"I never realised at the time that it could be my path."
Eleven years ago Alessandra quit her high-flying corporate job.
"I needed to take some time for me and follow what I wanted to do; something that I loved," she says.
"I had been through some dramatic moments in my life, very bad, but even then I never stopped cooking. The only thing I could do was practise yoga and cook to come back to life slowly.
"I needed space and time to heal and develop clarity, and here I am today, in Newcastle, doing what I love."
Alessandra met her husband, a yoga teacher, in 2013 and moved with him to Byron Bay in 2015. She started working as a private chef in 2016. The couple moved to Port Macquarie in 2018 and bought "a very beautiful, chic food van" to kickstart a catering business and pop-up restaurant called Osteria Papazzo.
"We did events from Byron Bay to three or four hours south of Sydney," she says.
"During the pandemic I was not able to do events any more. In two days I created a menu for home food delivery and called it Trays of Love. I also started offering as a gift floral arrangements, a little bouquet, and when I couldn't do pop-ups for the food I started doing floral pop-ups."
The couple moved to Newcastle last year with son Marley.
"I wanted a place where I would feel more alive that was close to Sydney. We felt there would be space for Osteria Papazzo to grow in Newcastle," Alessandra says.
"Osteria Papazzo is a work in progress. We are trying to work out what will be the best format.
"I'm still getting to understand the community and the culture here, it's still early days. I am used to big cities, and I explore everything in each city I'm in. Here, people tend to stay in the neighbourhood where they live."
Osteria Papazzo's menu is constantly changing. Alessandra likes to cook what is inspiring her at any given time, and chooses dishes she would like to introduce to the community.
"There is so much variety. Napoli is such an old city and was invaded by so many cultures and people from all over the world, so the cuisine has many influences," she says.
"So many Italian restaurants in Australia are kind of Australianised, you know? I see it as an education to cook Neapolitan food. I want to keep these traditions alive, the history alive ... being so far away from home it's a way for me to be connected to my roots.
"I remember being so little and watching my grandma cooking hundreds and hundreds of jars of the eggplant pickles for my mum's colleagues but she was not getting paid.
"I'm very generous as well, like my grandma. I cook to let people taste, to nurture and nourish. This is why I love it so much, it's a way to nourish someone, even if you don't know them.
"The flavours are so warm. When I taste my food I feel a warmth, something that warms my heart and my soul."
