Giovanni Coocoolabazza aka Hew Parham is a dazzling dedicated Italian waiter who runs the Coocoolabazza Café with his unseen, overbearing mother.
Giovanni's passione is to serve and to connect with his customers and espouse the traditione of slow food and personal service in this fast paced disconnected world. If you like Bugs Bunny, Sacha Baron Cohen or Mr Bean, you’ll love Giovanni. Here Giovanni shares 5 more of his favourite passiones:
Food
There is nothing better than the simplicity of a piece of toasted bread covered with good butter and honey and then laid with prosciutto; it will make your knees buckle. Or Osso Bucco slow cooked for five hours in the embers of the wood oven. But NOT hotdog-in-a-pizza-crust-pizza!Why don't you just put some fries on the base too? And some popcorn covered in carbonara sauce? Pizza is meant to be simple!! Let those flavours sing! Why 700 ingredients? Since when is pineapple meant to go anywhere near cheese? When have a cow and a pineapple met? Rip out my heart and deep fry it why don't you!
Coffee
People say Italians drink a lot of coffee – no we don't! We drink TINY coffee. Acrid-bitter-black-as-gold-coffee. Not 14 gallons with icecream! Butternutscotchsoy crumble with twill, served in a trough with your own suction pump! And now they have to be served by tattooed lumberjacks, with beans sourced by rat-buttocks syphoned through a science experiment, served in clay mugs handmade by peruvian dental assistants, with a gluten-free cronut!Language
Italian language has littered the English language like tissues on the bedroom floor of humanity, but seriously why always 'ciao'? Am I some kind of fetish to you? Why do you objectify me? You can’t say 'Ciao', only we can say 'Ciao'... Oh okay, you can say 'Ciao', but only with passione! You come to my restaurant and you say 'Ciao' without passione or you will be eating dog chow.
Calcio
It's Calcio, not 'football', not 'soccer'. I still cry when I think of Roberto Baggio's miss in the 1994 World Cup Final! He's playing chess and losing with Salmon Rushdie somewhere. I still have photo of Toto Schillaci above my bed in a bikini. It's not pretty, but it shows off his masterful physicality. But my favourite is Giancarlo Luigi Bouffon. I was a goalkeeper until I had to start working 14-hour shifts – but it is still useful for catching bread rolls thrown by mama.Monica Bellucci
It's as if Michelangalo, Da Vinci and Brancusi had a conversation with God in which she was conceived while Pavarotti was singing Nessun Dorma, while angels poured 50-year-old balsamico into a vespa engine to deliver her to the floor of the Sistine Chapel, and we all bowed and wept and covered our laps with our napkins.'Giovanni!' performs Brisbane Powerhouse 17-20 December, as part of Wonderland Festival which runs 3-20 December.
