Serving up the soul of regional Italy through food + storytelling.

Husband and wife team, Paolo & Kelly Picarazzi opened the Antica Australis cultural dining experience in the historic village of Carcoar in regional New South Wales, Australia in March 2020.

Since then, Antica Australis has gone on to win several awards for tourism and hospitality, including a Bronze in the ‘tourism restaurants’ category of the 2022 NSW Tourism Awards for the significant economic revival Antica brought to the local community and surrounding districts through destination dining as a tourism attractor to the region.

Antica Australis was named ‘one of the ten best regional restaurants in Australia worth travelling for’ by Travel + Luxury magazine in The Australian newspaper in June 2023 and has also featured in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Guide, Delicious Magazine, Qantas Travel Insider in-flight magazine, Sun-Herald Traveller, First Class magazine and SBS Italian.

In February 2023 the Antica Australis Experience took a step onto the world stage with an invitation to participate as part of the festival program for the 2023 Ras al Khaimah Fine Arts Festival and has returned for both the 2024 and 2025 Festival editions to present Antica Australis in the incomparable 16th century Emirati pearling village of Al Jazeera Al Hamra - the last remaining village of its kind in the UAE.

“I’ve been fortunate to eat in some extraordinary places - and nothing comes close to Antica Australis. It’s a unique dining experience unlike anything else. It’s a feast, a history lesson, a cultural immersion. I’ve been twice and I’ll go again. You will talk about it for years. The food will haunt your memories.” - Neil Varcoe @neilwrites