Simply outstanding

Antonio Crisci in his wine cellar at his vineyard Poderi Crisci on Waiheke Island. Photo / Babiche Martens

The first time I met Antonio Crisci, a more romantic setting you couldn't imagine. It was a dark winter's night, we were deep in the countryside, Italian opera filled the air, candles threw shadows across a room lined with French oak wine barrels and reflected in a wall stacked to the ceiling with merlot-filled bottles. The table, with more candles, was set... for 14. It was a family reunion, and we had the priviledge of being guests at Antonio's vineyard Poderi Crisci at Awaawaroa Bay, Waiheke Island.

Over the next few hours, our food-loving whanau was transported on a journey where perfection of flavour was expressed through simplicity. Large platters were spread down the table and changed with perfect timing, as we savoured delicious cheeses, prosciutto hams, fresh tomatoes and basil, olive oils, breads, the best eggplant parmigiano I've ever tasted, Wagyu steak, potatoes, artichokes... The experience lubricated by the Poderi Crisci wines produced on the property: a pinot grigio, a rose - both from the 2008 vintage, and the 2006 merlot.

It is this ongoing passion for authentic flavours and creating an authentic experience, which saw Antonio named Outstanding Hospitality Personality of the Year at the prestigious Lewisham Awards this week. He is famed for bringing true Italian food to our city - firstly with his restaurant Toto on Nelson St, and then Non Solo Pizza in Parnell which he runs with his partner Vivienne Farnell.

And while, today, we take it for granted to be able to buy good olive oil, pasta and cheeses - when he first arrived in New Zealand in 1991 it was a different story.

Antonio arrived by yacht into Opua. He had sailed from the other side of the world, following a dream to discover a Pacific island. Just "one of the things I had to do in my life" he explains with a nonchalant shrug.

Opua - understandably - was a culture shock for a man who had grown up in Naples, Italy, and spent his teens hitch-hiking around Europe, hanging out in Copenhagen, London, Ibiza...

"It was the seventies, you can imagine," he laughs as he makes me an espresso in his kitchen on the vineyard. "I looked like Frank Zappa with long hair. It was all very alternative."

His parents wanted him to go to university and while he did enrol to do medicine, he and his friends had bigger plans. "There was talk of creating a, how do you say, commune in Tuscany. I was fascinated at the time by an Indian guru who built a commune in India where there was no money - you just traded skills.

"We also had a plan to sail around the world and, in order to buy a boat, we hatched a scheme where we would travel from Naples to Rotterdam, where we would get on a cargo ship to Labrador where we would work in the mines, earn big money - and then buy a yacht and sail to the Caribbean.

"Ahh,' he laughs with the wisdom of hindsight. "Such ideas."

Antonio and his best friend did start out on this mission. " 'I'm leaving home', I told my parents. 'I'm never coming back.' And I stayed away for a few years, until my father started to have heart problems."

The Labrador mission was cut short just a few days out from Naples, due to a rain-soaked sleeping bag - sleeping rough wasn't that appealing. Instead, Antonio explored Europe... Until, at the age of 19, he met up with his parents at a fashion show in Bologna.

"It was the boom of jeans and I was buying old pairs from the States and stitching them together. There I was with my long hair and my handstitched jeans made with the American flag - you can imagine. Anyway, this man approached me and offered me a job - selling jeans. I had to cut my hair, wear a jacket and tie. But I sold so many jeans - 6-7 million pairs. In three months, I made enough money to open my own restaurant. I was 19."

While Antonio's business acumen came from his father's side - they run an extremely successful textile and fashion business, his passion for food comes from his mother's family who were in the wine and hospitality trade and he learned to cook from his grandmother.

"My restaurant was inspired by the iconic Paradise in Amsterdam which was housed in a big church and every room was different; there was a yoga room, a sitar room, a rock room ... In my restaurant, Camarillo Brillo, the first room was like an English pub, the second was a French bistro, the third a Morroccan tearoom ..."

The restaurant became very popular. "Too popular," says Antonio with a warm glint in his eye. And when it was time to move on Antonio found himself back in the fashion world. He spent 10 years in New York, importing Italian fashions - including labels such as Armani - to the States and exporting vintage American clothing.

From there he spent some time in Tuscany, before reigniting his dream to sail to the other side of the world.

"I left from Italy with friends and sailed to the Carribean. We then went in different directions and I continued with an American guy and different crew members along the way, to Venuezuela, Panama, the Galapagos Islands, Pitcairn Islands, French Polynesia, Tahiti, Tonga and, finally, Opua."

Antonio spent nine months exploring his new-found Pacific island, New Zealand, and was surprised at the lack of Italian influence in the culture " no good coffee, gelati, olive oil, pasta ... There were a few so-called Italian restaurants but the food was all really bad, not made by professional chefs, and there was a lot of compromise over the integrity of the food because you couldn't get the real thing here - and most people didn't know what the real thing was."

He travelled on to Australia and back to Italy, but when his residency for New Zealand was accepted - he thought, "why not?" Antonio knew there was potential in New Zealand.

"Australia already had a strong Italian influence, in New Zealand there was so much more to discover."

It was another "one of those things I had to do in my life" decisions: move to a country where he knew nobody and set himself the challenge of educating Kiwis about all things Italian.

"The original idea with Toto was to have large communal tables, where everyone joined together to eat, and it would be run like restaurants back in Naples, which is a little like being at home, and you walk in the door and say 'what are we eating tonight, mama?' and every night the menu would be different.

"Unfortunately, Kiwis weren't ready back then to eat at tables with strangers. And, then we would have people who'd come and say 'I hear you do gnocchi with four cheeses. I came especially from Takapuna to try it. What do you mean you don't have it!' So we changed to a smaller dining room and focused on more refined Italian cuisine.

"But people needed to be educated. Have you got bolognese? No. Do you have lasagne? No? Tortellini? No. We steered away from these stereotypical dishes. I just said come and try. I am an Italian chef, I cook with Italian influence. I use local and Italian product. I do Italian food. Luckily it was a big success straight away. Toto has been going for 16 years now."

In 1996, Antonio set up Non Solo Pizza (not only pizza) in Parnell. With its pretty garden, open fire place, and welcoming charm - regulars are known by name - this is the closest Antonio has got to recreating the neighbourhood restaurants of his beloved Naples.

"I wanted to return to those basic Italian dishes, and show New Zealanders how they should be done. And show them what good pizza really is! Pizza making is an art, you can't learn it from a book. Historically Naples has been influenced by many cultures, art, music and, of course, food with influences from the French, Spanish and Arabs. It has also always been poor compared to the north and that has stimulated a larger fantasy in the cuisine that is so well expressed in what at NSP we call contorni, small dishes mainly from the garden that can accompany a main meal or be eaten on their own all day long with a good glass of wine."

Our conversation is interrupted by Herb Friedli, the winemaker who works with Antonio on creating the Poderi Crisci wines. A winemaker for the past 25 years he now works and consults for a number of vineyards on and off Waiheke. They chat with enthusiasm about the latest vintage - the next "Super Waiheke".

"Come let me show you the grapes," says Antonio and before I know it we are bumping across his paddocks - Barry Crump style - in his ute. You couldn't be more removed from the chic steets of Parnell if you tried.

As we skid up a dirt track, Antonio gets out in the rain to open a gate - unaware, or too gentlemanly, to bend to the Kiwi farming tradition that it's the passenger who is always the gate opener. Our destination? The hill top across from the vineyard.

"The best place to fully appreciate what we have," says Antonio with a sigh - a mixture, perhaps, of satisfaction and acknowledgement of the work that lies ahead.

For Antonio has big dreams. He plans to create a vineyard where visitors have "layers" of experience. There are plans to open a restaurant, build a swimming pool, create olive oil, build an organic vegetable garden, grow an orchard, build accommodation...

Poderi Crisci is a quintessential slice of New Zealand - undulating north-facing slopes cling to a rocky finger of land that points out to sea through an inlet of rushes, mangroves and a stream complete with a small jetty.

"This is just another thing I must do in my life," Antonio says in a melancholic tone. When I ask him where his vision comes from he replies, "I guess, from my 'eart." And, for the first time in the inteview as he gazes out over his land, he is lost for words.