Snack course: a quick Q&A with chef Rodolfo Malinverni

08 Jul 2026

Journalist

What does the chef from Norte and Sueño fill up on at breakfast and what ingredient stalks his dreams? Rodolfo Malinverni answers our quickfire questions

Originally from a small village in Northern Italy, Rodolfo Malinverni, AKA Chef Rudy, cooked all over the world, including in Europe, the Caribbean and Central America, before making a dream move to Australia. There, he heads up Norte restaurant and Sueño Rooftop Bar on the Gold Coast, serving a refined interpretation of Latin American cuisine to hungry Queenslanders.

Hi Rodolfo, what do you always have in the fridge at home?

Miso paste. I'm a huge fan of Japanese cuisine. Also, bonito soy sauce [shoyu]. It also depends on what’s seasonal. I always have plenty of fruits and veggies. Some nice Parmesan cheese never misses.

If you’re feeling homesick for Italy, what do you like to cook?

Definitely linguine aglio e olio. You can't beat that. Or a simple tomato pasta, as long as you get the tomatoes when they’re perfect. Tomatoes here in Australia are just okay. I usually cook more towards Asian at home – in the wintertime, miso soup is a daily basic, but also, lots of minestrone.

What about breakfast?

I go right around the corner from where I work, to a nice bakery, and have a lamb or beef pie – amazing! I left Italy a long time ago, but even when I was there, I never had the classic, sweet Italian breakfast. It’s hard to get a break in the kitchen; a decent pie in the morning keeps me going for the whole day.

If you hadn't become a chef, what do you think you would have become?

Probably a gardener. I grew up going to my grandma's garden, with her picking the veggies, and then I would help in the summer season, sitting for hours, peeling the peas, flat beans, all those types of things. I have clear memories of the changes of the seasons. Or an Amazon explorer!

What’s the best restaurant you've been to lately?

In Australia, probably Agnes in Brisbane. They work with fire. There are a lot of great restaurants here in Australia.

What's the best dish you've ever eaten?

It sounds like a cliché, but my grandma's rabbit braised in milk. I was able to recreate it for a previous project. I was working at Vanitas at Palazzo Versace [on the Gold Coast]. I stuck to the recipe; I just presented it in a different, more elegant way. When I tried it, I almost cried because I nailed it.

What would your last meal on Earth be?

A nice pasta pomodoro, because I'm obsessed with tomatoes. When I was a child, I used to dream that the walls of my room were dripping with tomato sugo and I was going with a piece of bread and doing a scarpetta.

Do you get many celebrities in the restaurant?

We get a few. The most recent one was Jessica Alba – she came five or six times. I can say that Jessica Alba knows my name now because she was calling me Chef Rudy. They do a lot of big movies on the Gold Coast. Matt Damon, too. For me, the true VIPs are the regulars.

What is an overrated and an underrated ingredient, in your opinion?

Ethically, I can't stand the way foie gras is made. If talking about a small artisan, that's a different story, but most of the time, when you have foie gras in restaurants, it doesn't come from a farmer. I love good foie gras, but I would never serve it in any of my dishes. Any type of offal is massively underrated. Unfortunately, in Australia, people are not very into it. It’s just not in their culture.

What’s the craziest request you’ve ever had from a diner?

A few times, we’ve had guests who don't eat chilli, spices, garlic or onion. In a Latin American restaurant, they are in every single dish. So it gets a little tricky, but we always manage to come up with something.

Thank you, Rodolfo.

Chef Rodolfo Malinverni outside Norte-Sueno.

The chef

Italian chef Rodolfo Malinverni cooked all over the world before making a dream move to Australia, where he heads up Norté and Sueño on the Gold Coast. There, he offers a refined interpretation of Latin American cuisine, flexing skills developed in Brazil, Peru and elsewhere.

FUN FACT: Malinverni has some of his best ideas in the pool.

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