ANTICA AUSTRALIS, CARCOAR. BRINGING THE soul of rEGIONAL Italy TO the heart of rural Australia.
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‘Antica Australis : one of the ten best regional restaurants in Australia worth travelling for.'
‘Antica Australis serves up food and stories each weekend in the tiny, film-set town of Carcoar, in the Orange wine region. Just like husband-and-wife team Kelly and Paolo Picarazzi, the experience is a joyful coming together of culture and cuisine.’
Travel + Luxury Magazine, The Australian
‘I’ve been fortunate to eat in some extraordinary places - and nothing comes close to Antica Australis.’
‘It’s a unique dining experience unlike anything else. It’s a feast, a history lesson, a cultural immersion. I’ve been twice and I’ll go again. You will talk about it for years. The food will haunt your memories.’
NEIL VARCOE @neilwrites
‘An unforgettable dining experience that comes with a distinctly local flavour’
DELICIOUS AUSTRALIA
‘The Ciociarian slow-food locanda that is conquering Australia’
SBS ITALIAN
‘The food is deliciously different, the flavours superb. This is the kind of experience that makes you feel like standing up and saying ‘Bravo!’ at the end.’
FIRST CLASS MAGAZINE
‘Come for the food and stay for the historical stories. Rich in flavour, fun and history’
DELICIOUS AUSTRALIA
‘For storytelling, history and good food, book at Antica Australis.’
SUN-HERALD TRAVELLER MAGAZINE
‘Carcoar might be a small town of just under 300 people but it has a big drawcard: Antica Australis restaurant.’
QANTAS TRAVEL INSIDER
‘A triumph of regional produce and cooking straight from the heart.’
SUSAN KUROSAWA, THE AUSTRALIAN
‘Delivering big Italian flavour in the tiny town of Carcoar, executed beautifully and originally.’
SMH GOOD THINGS LIST 2020
‘The most honest, gloriously intriguing history of gastronomy tour.’
Rebecca Sutton @OLIVEATWIST
AWARDED
READER’S CHOICE - Australian Good Food Guide, Best Italian in Central NSW. February 2023
BRONZE - NSW Tourism Awards, Tourism Restaurants. November 2022
READER’S CHOICE - Australian Good Food Guide, Best Italian in Central NSW. February 2022
GOLD - NSW Tourism Top Tourism Town, Carcoar. May 2022
LISTING - Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide. February 2022
GOLD - Outstanding Business of the Year, Orange Business Chamber. August 2021
GOLD - Excellence in Tourism, Orange Business Chamber. August 2021
GOLD - Excellence in Hospitality, Orange Business Chamber. August 2021
CHEF HAT - Australian Good Food Guide. January 2021
GOLD - ‘Most Innovative Culinary Tourism Pivot’, World Food Travel Association. December 2020
PAOLO ~ he's Cento per Cento Ciociaro. 100% Ciociarian.
Paolo will tell you he's Ciociarian first, Italian second.
Italy became a unified country in 1861, Paolo's tribes (the Ernici & the Volscii) have been living in the valleys & mountains of what's now known as Ciociaria for tens of thousands of years.
Paolo emigrated to Australia a decade ago with a dream of establishing a Ciociarian locanda (local dining establishment focused on seasonal local produce) in the middle of the Australian countryside. It had to be surrounded by farms, orchards, vineyards & dairies. It had to be in a village. And it had to be in the middle of nowhere - the journey is all meant to be part of the experience.
Why Carcoar? One of Kelly's great-great-grandmothers was born here. It's a connection to place.
Antica is not a restaurant. It's not fine dining. Paolo is not a chef.
Paolo cooks using ancient Ciociarian slow-cooking techniques infused in his DNA. Antica [an-tee-ka] is Latin for 'ancient' and Paolo is focused on sharing the joy of the ancient flavours of Ciociaria using all-local regional produce. He's cooking straight from the heart, with the warmth and generosity of his ancient Ciociarian soul.
Ciociaria in central Italy was conquered by the Romans more than 3,000 years ago, but the spirit of Ciociarians has remained unvanquished. Their cultural heritage is alive in their dialect, their songs, their stories, their music - and their food.
Antica is Paolo's contribution to keeping the flame of the Ciociarian spirit burning bright.
ANTICA AUSTRALIS, CARCOAR.
This is the authentic taste of a cultural dining experience in a remote Italian village on top of a mountain. Without having to go all the way to Italy. Instead you get to pause for a moment outside of time in the charming historic Australian village of Carcoar in New South Wales.
Home for Antica Australis is the recently restored heritage building (built 1927 and originally a haberdashery store) on the corner of Belubula & Icely Streets in the charming historic village of Carcoar (pop. 200)in the Orange wine region of New South Wales.
Carcoar is just a scenic 40 minute drive and equidistant from Orange, Bathurst or Cowra - taking you through some classic and iconic Australian countryside [there is also a gorgeous secret back road joining the historic villages of Millthorpe and Carcoar if you follow the Old Cemetery Road from Carcoar].
This is also the headquarters of our travel experience company, Antica Travel Co.
We specialise in slow, experiential food & wine cultural travel experiences to the ‘hidden’ regions of Ciociaria and Molise in central Italy through our Wild Heart of Italy tours.
What’s a locanda?
This is not an Italian restaurant as you may know it, Antica Australis is a ‘locanda’.
A locanda is a local, casual dining establishment where everyone is warmly welcomed and where you are encouraged to feel right at home. It’s a very traditional regional Italian concept of an inn, designed to provide meals for weary travellers looking to rest and revive their spirits. Carcoar was an original stop on the old Cobb & Co track, so it’s the perfect alignment of rural life in Australia and Italy!
Why Antica Australis?
This is the original Latin term of reference in the old world for Australia and means ‘the ancient south’. It also resonates perfectly with Paolo’s ancient homeland, Ciociaria.
ABOUT CIOCIARIA.
Say it with us, <cho-sha-ria>. Paolo is from the ancient ‘hidden’ food and wine region of Ciociaria in central Italy, it’s just one hour south from Rome but a whole world away. Ciociaria was once the favoured foodie destination of the ancient Roman emperors, who loved its forests full of wild venison, wild boar and forest truffles, it’s plentiful olive groves, vineyards and eminently drinkable wines - the Cesanese (red) and Maturano (white) varietals which are indigenous to the region.
Roman philosopher Cicero was a Ciociaran, the Roman General Gaius Marius was too - and Saint Benedict founded the Benedictine Order in AD 529 and established its first six monasteries in Ciociaria.
This is the wild heart of Italy, the homeland of ancient Italic tribes including the Ernici and the Volscii who helped forge the first concept of a unified country in the Apennine Mountains over 3,000 years ago through an alliance with the 10 other tribes of the land (during the Samnite and Etruscan civilisation era).
The original name of what is now known as Italy was Víteliú. The Italic tribes were conquered by the ancient Romans circa 300 BC but their spirit lives on in their food, stories, music and dialect. Paolo has brought a little of the wild Ciociarian spirit to the untamed ancient southern land he now calls home.
Charming Carcoar.
The first European explorers to cross the Blue Mountains arrived in 1815, with the first European settlers arriving in the area in 1821. The first land grant was given to (Sir) Thomas Icely in 1829 and Carcoar was gazetted for settlement in 1839 as a service village for Iceley’s grand Coombing Park estate - on which he grazed large runs of sheep and cattle and mined the region’s first copper & gold. In Carcoar a number of large stores, a brickworks, two flour mills plus cheese, cordial and beer factories were established - and by the 1850-1860s goldrush era it was a town of around 2,500 souls with 16 pubs, three churches, a court house, district hospital and a public school.
Carcoar is still perfectly preserved with many heritage buildings and historic sites and the entire village is classified by the Australian National Trust. The cheerful Belubula River runs through the village of Carcoar alongside Antica Australis and the district was the original abundant heartland of the Wiradjuri people. The word ‘belubula’ is believed to mean ‘stony river’ in the Wiradjuri language and Carcoar means ‘frog’. In summer the sound of Carcoar as the sun sets is of contented little frogs singing along merrily on the banks of the Belubula River.
We would like to acknowledge the Wiradjuri people as the traditional custodians of the lands in which we live, work and learn and we pay our deepest respects to the Elders – past, present and emerging – for holding the memories, traditions, culture and hopes of this beautiful place.
ABOUT US.
Paolo emigrated to Australia from Ciociara in 2013, after meeting Kelly while we were both working in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Kelly’s family have lived in the Orange region since the 1840s and it seemed like a good place to return to after wandering the world. Since arriving in Australia in 2013, we established our food and wine tour company, Silver Compass Tours in 2014 which is now headquartered in Carcoar and rebranded to Antica Travel Co. in 2022.
Paolo & Kelly Picarazzi