A group of some of Australia’s best Italian chefs who all come from the region of Abruzzo in Italy have come together to design the menu at a charity dinner to raise money to support the area that was rocked by a major earthquake in April.

The gala event “An Evening With Abruzzi Chefs” is being organised by Doltone House and Sydney’s Signorelli family. Paul Signorelli is CEO of Doltone House and a member of the NSW fundraising committee.

The menu at next month’s dinner will feature authentic Abruzzi cuisine designed by five acclaimed chefs from the region now living in Sydney—Eugenio Maiale from A Tavola restaurant, Elio Benedetti from Doltone House, Sandro Di Marino from Uccello and Jason Dalina and Antonio Di Santo from Geko Restaurant.

It will be held at Doltone House on July 7 and hosted by food presenter and journalist Joanna Savill.

Doltone House chef Elio Benedetti said he and the other chefs had met up and put together a menu that reflected the strong food traditions of the Abruzzo region.

“What we did was have a forum and spoke about traditional home set values that reflected the nonnas and the grandmothers and stuff that is part and parcel of our region,” said Benedetti.

“Our region is very, very food oriented—more so than a lot of other regions. People travel to Abruzzo to have certain dishes—we have the mountains and the sea so we eat a lot of seafood and a lot of game.”

Benedetti said the appetiser on the night would be an antipasto “Abruzzese style”. “It is pretty much like the traditional antipasto but as well as prosciutto and salami and cheese and olives we would also put half a boiled egg. That’s what we do.”

Entrée will be a ragu style pasta with lamb while main course will be suckling pig—porchetta—both very traditional for the region. “There is a suckling pig festival every year where all the towns put on their own porchetta festival and people come and appreciate it,” Benedetti said.

The porchetta will be served deboned and rolled with a filling of garlic and dried wild fennel flowers from Benedetti’s garden. “The flowers have an amazing fennel-based odour to them that works really well with pork, and that will be served with an orange and fennel salad, which is traditional to be served with it.”

Dessert will focus on persimmons, or cachi, which are very popular in the region. “We’ve decided to do an inverted cone of semi freddo with cachi through it. The cones will be served cachi coulis and around that itself will be ciricchiata. It’s a thing we do at Easter time.

“It is balls made from egg ad flour that are rolled and deep fried. You then make a mixture of honey and roasted almonds and you fold the fried balls through the honey. You form that into a long log and serve sliced.

“We thought would do that same thing but with a loose feel about it so the ciricchiata will be sprinkled around the cone–very simple and hardy for winter.”

The dinner will finish with biscotti Abruzzese that is being made by Benedetti’s mother and aunty.

As well as the magnificent food the event already has a distinguished guest list attending including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and the Honourable Morris Iemma.

All proceeds will be donated to the Australian Abruzzo Earthquake Appeal fund.

For more information phone 02 8571 0622 or got to the website doltonehouse.com.au