A restaurant known for its wood and charcoal-fired stoves has been forced to close in the Australian state of New South Wales after it was unable to manage the smoke that was pouring into nearby residences.
Osteria il Coccia opened in 2019 but closed on September 1 after years of complaints from neighbors that the smoke was not exhausting up a chimney, but instead billowing out of the back of the building and making breathing difficult. The eatery was featured in a Netflix series called Chef’s Table: BBQ, and was known for a fine-dining atmosphere combined with meat cooked over traditional wood and coal flames.
The owners, Alex and Nico Coccia, said they were sad to see “their heart and soul” go away, but they’ve been unable to get on top of the nuisance complaints about the smoke. The Central Coast Council (the municipal government) said it had received 20 complaints about the smoke. On investigating the restaurant, inspectors found that the ventilation system had not been installed correctly. In addition, the council said the owners did not have an air quality test done, and the ventilation was inadequate for wood-fired cooking.
Osteria il Coccia, located in the town of Ettalong, was known for dishes like pork cutlets and caramelized onion, which Nico prepared as the chef.
A spokesman for the council said the body understood that wood cooking was central to the restaurant’s appeal, but that the resulting smoke needed to be “properly managed” since the kitchen was so close to other people’s homes.
Alex Coccia said that letting go of the eatery was a hard thing to do, and that closing day was “bittersweet.” After managing to stay in business during the Covid lockdowns, along with the hardships that plague start-up restaurants, it was disappointing to see it all go down this way. She said she and her husband had built the eatery up “from nothing” and were looking forward to paying off business loans and expanding.
They’re going to be stuck with a bill, too. The couple will be out $200,000 after the closing, and they’ll have to leave $70,000 of equipment for the landlord in order to square up their rental debt.
The pair do have another restaurant called Carne and Cocina, and some of the laid off staff will be given jobs there.
