The Australian Table

by Peter Robinson – – –

This is the story of a humble Italian restaurant: Trattoria del Sole, on Monte Isola in Lago d’Iseo, Lombardia, Italy. Except, on the trattoria’s near waterfront terrace, there’s a special table facing the tiny island of San Paolo, owned since 1916 by the Beretta family, the world’s oldest armaments manufacturers. 

The Australian Table, as it is now known – there’s a plaque to confirm it – has played host to a variety of motoring people, the majority of whom are Australians. 

Let me explain: 10 kilometres south of the lake, you’ll find the small village of Calino. Here, in the mid-1980s, Athol Yeomans, Wheels’ magazine’s first editor, and Ian Fraser, the third editor, rented Santa Stefano, a small chapel/house, owned by Contessa Camilla Maggi. Already, the motoring connection grows large for the Contessa was the widow of Aymo Maggi, the Italian aristocrat responsible for the Mille Miglia, the planet’s greatest road race (1927-1957, as featured in the recent Ferrari film). 

Athol and Ayleen, his wife, first lunched at Monte Isola in 1987. My wife Erica and I moved to Calino in late 1988, our home, not by coincidence, found for us by Camilla. I was to work as European editor for Autocar magazine (the world’s oldest motoring title, founded in 1895) and Wheels. 

In July 1989, John Crawford, former editor of Modern Motor and public relations person for JRA (and later Jaguar and Bentley in the USA), and our (non-motoring) friends Liz Storey and her daughter Nicky Palmer, were staying with me (Erica was in Australia for the birth of a granddaughter). Athol suggested the tratt for lunch. On the ferry ride from Iseo, I learned from Athol that Monte Isola, at 12.8 sq km, is the largest island in a lake in Italy and, at 599 metres, the tallest. No cars are allowed, though there is a small bus, the population just under 1800 people. A few of whom still make fishing nets by hand. Compared to Garda, Maggiore and Como, Iseo remains Italy’s unspoiled northern lake. 

Trattoria del Sole’s menu is simple, flawless, the specialty, fish from the lake. For the 16 years we lived in Italy, Monte Isola was an idyllic summer getaway: a swim in the lake, drying off under the olive grove, an Australian Table lunch, a nap on the grass, before another swim and the ferry to Iseo. Paradise? Absolutely. 

Living in Italy, curiosity inevitably produces scores of visiting friends, even if it’s supposedly industrial Lombardy and not scenic Tuscany. Initially, they were Australians, so many that in the early 1990s Athol, who spent three months every year in Calino, decided he should invest in a plaque that recognised the friendship between Italy and Australia at The Australian Table.   

As we developed personal relationships with expatriate car designers in Turin, they too, visited Monte Isola: Moray Callum, designer of Ghia’s 1993 Lagonda Vignale, who would later rise to head Ford design globally; Peter Davis, soon to be boss of Fiat design; Greg Brew, ex-Lancia, BMW and Polaris; and Sally Wilson, Ghia’s colour and trim person. Over the years, the Australian Table also played host to scores of heavyweight designers: Volvo’s Peter Horbury; Peter Stevens, who styled the McLaren F1; Martin Smith, boss of Opel design before taking the same role at Ford of Europe; and Tony Hatter, the Pom responsible for the Porsche 993 and GT1.  

They weren’t all artists. Motoring writers Steve Cropley and Mel Nichols, both formerly Wheels staffers, later Car magazine editors, and for decades England-based;  ex-Wheels journalist John Carey, now living in Bergamo, 35km to the west; motoring book writer (and former-Toyota PR person) John Smailes; journalist Greg Kable, based in Stuttgart and covering the German automotive scene; once Ford PR-person Mike Jarvis; photographer Tim Wren (who shot Wheels’ famous Ferrari F50 May 1995 cover); and the late Rob McEniry, a senior General Motors executive and later President of Mitsubishi Australia.

Yes, and an engineer. After VW’s all-powerful CEO Ferdinand Piech first drove the original Ford Focus in 1998, he realised the forthcoming Mk V Golf needed to ditch the torsion beam rear axle and opt for a multilink rear suspension. Piech attempted to poach Richard Parry-Jones, Ford’s head of European engineering, only to discover Richard was paid more than he was. The alternative was Ford’s head of chassis, Ulrich Eichhorn, who brought his engineering brilliance to VW in 2000 and went on to become director of R&D at Bentley in 2003 and later R&D director for the VW Group. 

Uli proposed to Alexandra in Iseo in 1992. For her birthday in 2004, Uli booked a hotel on Lake Garda. Disillusioned that the hotel was far from as presented, he rang and asked for alternative accommodation suggestions. Erica, remembering the newly opened Relais Mirabella hotel, located above Clusane and overlooking Lake Iseo, booked the only available room for the Eichhorns.  

Uli takes up the story: “You had mentioned the ‘tavola Australeneo’, so we went to Monte Isola asking for it at reception. The lady there asked – somewhat puzzled – if we four were together: the couple just ahead of us had made a similar request. Were we Australian? ‘No, we are friends of Peter Robinson,’ and they said, ‘We, too.’ They were Athol and Ayleen. We dined together at the Australian table and had a great evening.”

Even a politician. During Easter 2001, former NSW Premier Neville Wran and his wife Jill, their two children, and I walked the 1.5km on the lakeside path from Peschiera to Sensole in the rain to savour the food at the Australian Table.

Over a decade later, in 2016, former Wheels and Top Gear magazine editor Stephen Corby (who now has a must-read motoring column in The Australian Weekend Magazine) and family spent six months living in Bologna. They took my advice and visited Monte Isola, dining at the Australian Table. 

Most recently, in July, two Australians were invited to drive Ferrari’s F80, the latest in a line of supercars that began with the 288 GTO and continued through the F40, F50, Enzo and LaFerrari: Corby and Matt O’Malley, Wheels’ new publisher, hosted by Ryan Lewis, Maranello’s Australian communications person and an ex-Wheels staffer. On the plane, Corby realised that to reach the Stelvio Pass, his bucket list destination before tackling the F80, required only a short detour to visit Lake Iseo. Why not add John Carey, who now lives in Bergamo, 35km to the west, and lunch together at the Australian Table?  

Corby and co left their 12Cilindri and Purosangue in Sulzano and caught the ferry to the island. After an enjoyable lunch, John and his partner Alex went for a swim, while the Ferrari group set off for Bormio, just south of the Stelvio. Departing at 5.15am the following morning, they pointed the two Ferraris to the Stelvio, at 2757 metres (529 metres higher than Kosciuszko), the second-highest pass in the Alps. 

By a stroke of amazing fortune, they discovered it was the 200^th anniversary of the Stelvio Pass. The ascent, to be closed from 9.00am to midday, was deserted. The Ferraris had the 34 sweeping hairpins to the summit to themselves. 

All because Corby knew the Australian Table was worthy of another visit. 

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An abridged version of this story first appeared in Wheels magazine.