Antica Australis: creating a new culinary benchmark for the UAE | The National, Feb 2025
Italian rustic fare given an Emirati and Aussie twist. Antica Australis brings it multi-cultural pop-up dining experience to sate the appetite of festival foodies for RAKART 2025.
The tale behind the multiple award-winning Antica Australis is one you’ll want to savour: how former Abu Dhabi residents Paolo and Kelly Picarazzi started their restaurant in the New South Wales village of Carcoar, 250km west of Sydney.
How that historic Australian village of less than 300 inhabitants became a tourist pilgrimage spot, thanks to the couple’s inventiveness. This pairs ancient, slow-cooked recipes from Italy’s Ciociaria region with farm-fresh local produce, while dishing up tasty tales of culinary craftsmanship.
And how they’ve taken the concept global to create a nomadic cultural dining experience that chimes with our itinerant lives as global citizens.
The Ras Al Khaimah Art 2025 Festival will host a series of Antica Australis Cultural Dining events across four weekends from Saturday 1 February to Sunday 23 February 2025. There will be two sittings on Saturday at 1pm and 7pm, and one on Sundays at 1pm.
The setting? An enchanting Emirati courtyard in the 16th century Al Jazeera Al Hamra Heritage Village.
The twist in the tale? The Antica Australis Ciociarian cuisine will be infused with artisanal Emirati flavours and light Aussie punches, creating a new culinary benchmark — and one that reflects the multi-cultural UAE.
The other comfort factor is the Picarazzi’s approach to sustainability: pairing a policy of zero waste with using local produce.
They are inspired by Italy’s rural locandas, small restaurants that serve only food and wine produced in their village. Ms Picarazzi told The National that ingredients used at the 2024 pop-up came from organic farms owned by Ras Al Khaimah Ruler, Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi.
“Sheikh Saud has been so supportive of what we’re doing,” says Ms Picarazzi, “He’s personally passionate about sustainable farming.”
“We strongly believe in eating in context. There’s a reason things grow in the place you are in.”
This is the third - and final - year of the Antica Australis pop-ups in Ras Al Khaimah, so foodies near and far may want to pull out all the stops to sample this inventive fare.