THE SWEETEST LEMON

The Weekend Australian Magazine, May 2002

Libero Dc Luca's liqueur combines Italian style with local tastes.

Story HELEN O'NEILL Photography RUSSELL SHAKESPEARE

Only a certain kind of lemon will do for Libero De Luca. "With the thick skin," he explains in melodic Italian-Australian lilt. "It has to be a lemon that's not dry, because we only use the skin, the very fine zest. Every lemon we have to do by hand, no machine, otherwise we get the white rind inside and it gets bitter. So we do it all by hand, 300 kilos of lemons by hand."

How many lemons is that? The 68-year-old pulls a face. "I don't know. A lot of lemons."

He needs them for Ambra Limoncello, his version of a traditional Italian liqueur that may be only three years old but has already become so trendy he's had the ABC, Channel 7 and SBS visit his Adelaide factory to, as he puts it, "help me peel lemons for their show[s]".

But there is more to De Luca than his thick-skinned lemons. A veteran of the South Australian food scene, he arrived in Australia from the Amalfi Coast when he was just 19, one of many who left Italy after the war in search of work. Despite his mother's emotional requests for him to return, he made his life in Adelaide, opening Toto, the city's first pizza bar, in 1962. He sold it three years later when pizza bars started springing up like mushrooms.

He open the Billy Bunter bistro and continued innovating, introducing his diners to baby squid. I bought two tonnes from Kangaroo Island at 20c a kilo," he recalls. "I had a long bar, where ... I put fresh calamari for nothing. People say, 'Oh, we use that for bait', then after a bit of time they like it. Then I put it on the menu. With new things you've got to educate, make people try. But Australian people, they have the will to learn."

By 1992, DeLuca was on to Da Libero - restaurant number four - and in need of a rest. He holidayed in Italy and noticed that Limoncello, a sweet digestif, was all the rage. He vowed to introduce it to Australia but before he had the chance, another company started importing. Luckily for him, the imported product didn't take.

"I said, 'I'm not going to give up', so I went back to Italy, worked one place four weeks for nothing, eight hours a day. I would have paid anything to work there. First they said no, then I showed them my Australian passport. They said, 'Okay, you can come.' Then I worked another place for six weeks, different system, different company."

He came home and started experimenting. "[The] Italian one is 33 per cent alcohol, mine is 25. Over there they treat it like grappa, very strong, and Australians don't like that ... too strong for them. Too sharp." It worked. In just three years he's expanded his liqueur range to include orange, strawberry, and chocolate with orange; his wares are stocked in Liquorland, Vintage Cellars and David Jones, and sold in Singapore. Asked if he's thought about exporting to his homeland, he laughs: "No. I don't want to do Italy. Too cheeky."

When he talks about trying to crack the lucrative Hong Kong and British markets, the topic of DeLuca's family pops up. Perhaps one day his son might consider taking on the family business, he says, finding some photographs. "That's my son. He is a most handsome-looking boy. Tall, six foot. Very, very good at business, too."

Looking back, DeLuca seems amazed he lasted so long in the restaurant trade. "I should have left five years earlier, 35 years is a long time." That said, he wouldn't change things. He reels off celebrities who have eaten at his venues and the list takes in everyone from John McEnroe to Tina Turner. "I even had prime ministers in my restaurant - Hawke, Keating, Whitlam and Fraser," he says proudly.

"You know, before I started Limoncello I was going to retire. I don't need to work for money, I work more for hobby, more because I am still fit. I don't want to stay home... I can't resist new things. And I enjoy it. When I don't enjoy any more," he waves his hand dismissively in a gesture as old as the Amalfi Coast itself - "then I go. But only then."