If Dom Bagnato hadn't visited his godfather, a tailor, when he was nine, he might have taken his father's advice and become a panel beater. But fashion hooked him early, and he started an alterations business in his Italian family's garage before going on to study pattern making and design, and falling hard for the lines of Dior and YSL. His classic men's Dom Bagnato brand is sold nationally here and in New Zealand, and wife Pia and adult children Melina and Nunzio are all involved in the business. He will showcase his range as part of Melbourne Spring Fashion Week, starting August 31.
Food discovery I've recently fallen in love with spicy, slow-cooked Moroccan tagines.
My pantry: Pasta's big in our house, being Italian, and we experiment with different kinds, like Barilla and Divella. The main thing is, they have to be good to eat al dente. Home-made tomato sauce, which we use in everything, including Asian food. Home-made sausages are a family tradition. We buy the meat and casings and make our own spice mix of chillies, roasted pureed red capsicum. And we get together as a family to make tomato sauce. Legumes for soups, salads, stews. Carbonell Spanish olive oil when we want a mild flavour and Cobram Estate robust for dressings and finishing antipasto. Mazzetti balsamic vinegar. Cadbury hazelnut milk chocolate.
My fridge: The vegetable compartment is always full, that's the starting point of all our shopping and cooking. Olives, which we buy green and cure ourselves. You crack them with the blunt end of a bottle and soak in brine for four to six weeks. The green ones we eat plain; the black we fry with chilli. Eggs from a free-range organic farm nearby. Parmesan and grana padano cheeses for serving with pasta or eating straight. King Island brie is a favourite. Pork belly for a ragu I'm going to make by slow cooking it in home-made tomato sauce with fried onion.
Saeco Incanto coffee machine. Heavy Bessemer pot for slow cooking and a lighter-grade pot for firing things up quickly. Two Victorinox knives: a heavy one for chopping and a smaller, serrated one for finer work. A stick blender is great for pureeing soups.
Favourite: An old grill plate reminds me of my childhood and the way we used to cook.
I drink too many Lavazza piccolo lattes to mention until lunchtime, then after that I drink Lipton or Dilmah tea with a dash of milk and half a sugar. During the week, I like to drink value wines such as Taylors shiraz, and at the weekend I'll have something more special, like the Clos Marguerite 2009 pinot noir from New Zealand.
Saturday night tipple: I'm a big fan of Carpene Malvolti prosecco, which goes beautifully with an antipasto.
Celebration drink: Moet et Chandon champagne.
The space and the flow with all the bench space is great. It doesn't matter what you're cooking; it works beautifully.
Last dinner at home: A rustic chunky pork-belly soup with potato and beans. I cooked it for one hour and 45 minutes and it came up magic.
Lindor balls are just gorgeous. They make me feel like royalty.
Last May, we went to Mozaic in Ubud, Bali, and had a degustation of beautiful Indonesian-influenced dishes, done in the most contemporary way with so many surprising flavours. We had matched wines, none of which I recognised, but they worked so well with the food.
I'm surrounded by great cooks: my wife, my daughter, my father-in-law, my mum. Obviously I love going to restaurants and get ideas there. Jamie Oliver is one of my favourite cooks. I don't have any of his books but I go online and get his recipes. I'm also a big fan of cooking shows, especially Anthony Bourdain's.
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