Bonito bread. Pudding with miso banana. All the Kirin: a hatted Japanese-Italian izakaya in Sydney is bringing the party to Perth for one night only.
Yet for anyone with an interest in Japanese or Italian cooking – or, even better, Japanese and Italian cooking – this dinner may well be one of 2025’s most intriguing meals.
Introducing Ito x Santini: A Menu Without Borders. Taking place at Santini Bar & Grill at QT Perth on May 22, this one-off dinner sees Milan-born chef Erik Ortolani of hatted Surry Hills izakaya Ito head west to team up with Nic Wood and Jake Lynch – the culinary creative lead and executive chef, respectively, of Santini – to serve a dinner reimagining Italian cuisine through both restaurants’ lenses.
When Terry Durack reviewed Ito in the Sydney Morning Herald last year, the veteran food writer highlighted the gingery bite of the kingfish crudo; the Japanese-accented “salsa verde” made of seaweed, fresh shiso and togarashi chilli that brightened a panzanella salad, plus other dishes that suggested modern Japanese and Italian cookery had more in common than most diners might assume.
“Some mash-ups between two different cuisines can feel forced,” he wrote. “But this one seems organic and natural.”
Ortolani’s career trajectory feels similarly organic and natural too. After studying cookery in Parma, he worked at Michelin-starred restaurants at luxurious hotels in Milan including the Park Hyatt and Armani Hotel. It was a stint at Milan’s output of Nobu that exposed Ortolani to ingredients and dishes beyond the classic Italian that he was familiar with. And if he wanted to pursue this new style of cooking, Ortolani would have to spread his wings.
“I was drawn to Australia by the casual Asian dining that was everywhere,” he says. “Back then, there wasn’t a lot of that in Milan and Europe, although that’s changing now. But because Australia was so close to Asia, it had a different food scene that felt like it was more produce-focused but at the same time, also laid-back.”
A four-year stint at Potts Point’s modern Japanese eatery Cho Cho San was a defining a key passage in Ortolani’s story, not least because his last two years were running the restaurant’s kitchen. Cho Cho San’s pace and modern dishes put Ortolani in good stead for his current role as head chef of an 80-seat neighbourhood izakaya fixated on the crossover between Japanese ingredients and Italian technique and vice versa.
A self-confessed “Italian guy cooking Japanese food”, Ortolani enjoys the freedom of grabbing the right ingredient for a dish rather than the “authentic” one. That might mean deploying chewy Shanghai-style wheat noodles in a vegetarian mushroom “pasta” or using smoky katsuobushi (smoked tuna) to ramp up ravioli filled with four kinds of seafood.
Team Santini, meanwhile, will serve Japanese-influenced takes on the restaurant’s big-hitting Italian cooking a la tomahawks of Berkshire pork glazed with miso. Keeping on the Japanese izakaya theme, all courses will be paired with drinks from the Kirin portfolio, from crisp Ichiban lager to cocktails made with Hyoketsu shochu.
This cross-cultural dinner isn’t just a celebration of Japanese and Italian cooking: it will also be the first Good Food Events collaboration to be held in Western Australia since 2021. In the same way that Good Food celebrates excellence in food across the nation, Good Food Events brings the nation’s finest chefs, restaurateurs and thinkers through unique dining experiences. Additional Perth Good Food Events will be announced later in the year.
Ito x Santini: A Menu Without Borders is being held at QT on Thursday May 22. Tickets are $159 per person and available online.
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Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.
