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It must have been quite a few weeks ago — probably in very early June — that I listened to a very proud Peter Piccolo apologise for his son Luke being absent from a large and excellent family-cooked meal at his farm on the outskirts of the NSW city of Griffith.

Luke runs Limone Dining, one of most successful of Griffith’s many top-notch Italian eateries, and he had to be in Sydney that night to be announced as a finalist in the Appetite for Excellence award, one of Australia’s major competitions for the country’s young chefs, waiters and restaurateurs.

These competitions inevitably seem to take forever to judge and a few nights ago the winners of the Appetites were announced during gala function at Glass Brasserie, the Sydney Hilton’s fine-dining restaurant.

And you guessed it. The winner of the young restaurateur for 2019 was Luke Piccolo of Griffith’s Limone Dining (452 Banna Ave, Griffith, phone 6962 3777, visit www.limone.com.au), where I’d been fortunate enough to dine the night before.

Limone: one of most successful of Griffith’s many top-notch Italian eateries.

Luke was too busy getting prepared for the following night’s event to be on the floor of his restaurant, but he did find time to drop in for a coffee and chat with me after what had been a stupendous feast.

And he’d left the kitchen in very good hands … those of his three next-in-command chefs, Satvir Chahal, Nicholas Webb and Liam Sibillin.

The choice of entrée at Limone was simple enough.

Limone’s front door: the way to many Italian treats.

It had to be the tagliatelle with quail, chestnut and parmigiano, though I could just as easily have been persuaded to have the warm berlotti bean salad with scampi, stinging nettle and bisque.

Simply because scampi is one of my favourite foods, and because I’d never tried stinging nettle before.

But I’d remembered Luke a couple of years previously explaining the real secret to being a great chef: imagination, hard work, and never believing that you can cook better than your grandmother does.

And I’d remembered what Luke and his grandmother — or ‘Nonna’ — and extended family had done with pasta. It was simply sensational.

Anyway, I’d chosen well to start my Limone experience. The pasta was exquisite, as I knew it would be, and the local quail from Myee Farm sensationally tender and richly flavoured.

Mind you, the dish had to be good to better my main course of Riverina black angus, served with cime di rapa (a strongly bitter green) and persimmon, and the baked vanilla cheesecake that followed for dessert.

The two-night sojourn in Griffith was as a break from a Cruise Express (phone 1300 766 537; visit www.cruiseexpress.com.au) vintage-rail journey from Sydney-to-Melbourne and back, and featured an afternoon at the Piccolo family’s farm (visit www.piccolofamilyfarm.com.au) for plenty of pasta washed down by local beer and wine.

Luke Piccolo: at work with excellent produce in the kitchen of Limone.

The heady combination proved to be a highlight of the journey.

Peter’s thoughts on family, agriculture and life in general were provocative and thoughtful, and his description of preparing a couple of bleeding pigeons in the lead-up to Luke winning the first of many awards as a chef was thoroughly side-splitting.

Luke was working in a Sydney restaurant at the time and was chosen to compete in a national cooking competition. As a part of the competition he had to create a dish and prepare it for a panel of well-known chefs. He chose to cook pigeon and polenta, a dish had had remembered his Nonna (grandmother) cooking when he was young.

Winemaker Julie Mortlock: leading some of the Cruise Express participants through a range of wine from De Bortoli.

Weeks before the competition Luke rang his Nonna and asked her to source some farm-raised pigeons. The birds were killed on farm, plucked and left to age for a week in his parents’ cool-room.

The tricky part was trying to get them to Sydney via a small commercial plane. The birds were packed in an esky, and it was sent with a friend, contents unknown to her.

The judges were amazed by the whole thing, commented on Luke’s passion and named him the CIRA Young Chef of the Year.

Peter Piccolo: quite rightly a very proud Dad.

The Griffith stopover was also highlighted, after a tour of the town and an introduction to its Italian-ness, by a visit to De Bortoli Wines, where winemaker Julie Mortlock introduced tour participants to a range of the company’s products.

That evening it was dinner with an old winemaking friend from nearby Leeton and a taste of some of Griffith’s more conventional Italian fare at Il Corso Café (140 Basnna Ave, Griffith; phone 02 6964 4500) — an entré-sized serving of spaghetti bolognese followed by a main course of saltimbocca, combined with some fine wine made by my host at his family’s Lillypilly Estate.

Peter Piccolo: sharing some great yarns over a lunch prepared by Satvir Chahal, Nicholas Webb and Liam Sibillin.

The latter dish’s pan-seared veal medallions topped with prosciutto and cooked in a herby white-wine sauce was Griffith how I remember it — decidedly Italian and delicious.

It was my sort of town. Only it had become even better with the arrival of Limone and the decision by the Piccolo family to market their excellent produce more widely.