One year ago, restaurateurs Ramey Samweil and Dane Conboy launched Tremila, offering wholesale, authentically Italian, hand-stretched pizzas to commercial kitchens, restaurants, pubs and cafes around Melbourne. Business was booming, with Tremila supplying freshly crafted goods to over twenty venues including major hospitality groups like the Caulfield Racing Club, Pegasus Leisure Group and popular eateries like Sonder, Etto and The Albion Hotel. However, since COVID-19 restrictions have been issued, Tremila sadly had to stop working with over 80 per cent of clients, forcing the young owners to get creative and expand its offering to everyone and anyone within the Melbourne region.
Back in April, the Tremila team began personally delivering its pizzas to homes, not knowing whether or not their newly formed business model would be popular with hungry Melburnians. Fast forward five months and the business has sent out over 25,000 pizzas. There is a clear demand for restaurant quality dishes that are easy to prepare and reasonably priced which lead the founders to not only expand its menu offering and include fresh pastas and desserts, but also make the decision to permanently offer home delivery.
“Like millions of other people in hospitality, the COVID-19 lockdown has impacted our business dramatically,” said Ramey Samwell, Co-Owner of Tremila. “We were devastated to shut down our restaurant in Oakleigh, The Italian Corner at the beginning of the pandemic but wanted to continue working with food regardless, so we redirected our business model to connect with people while they’re staying home. We know it’s hard keeping positive with everything going on but know that food can help bring us together and switch off for a few hours with our loved ones. Melburnians have such a strong love affair with Italian food and we’ve found that our products are purchased by businesses wanting to treat their staff and perfect for those celebrating anniversaries. People can still feel like they are going out with a Tremila pack as our products are the perfect balance of comfort and classy. We are so grateful that we have managed to survive as a business in 2020 and plan to expand even further having seen success in our new delivery model.”
Tremila dishes are not your average frozen or homemade Italian meals. All pizzas use imported ‘00’ flour from Naples along with a complicated 48-hour fermentation process, ensuring a fluffy artisan style crust, just like you would get in Italy. Using imported tomato sauce for the base of pizza and a combination of local meats, cheeses and vegetables, these pizzas are Italian delights with a Melbourne twist.
This week, Tremila have added more flavour choices to its pizza range and also have a range of fresh pasta, sauces and a selection of delicious DIY dessert kits to choose from. Every single item is incredibly delicious, and you can taste the high quality ingredients used in each dish. The pasta is light and delicate and the pizzas are incredibly more-ish. Then there’s the DIY cannoli – so easy to put together, but not compromising on taste one little bit.
All pasta is hand made using an Italian pasta machine and Australian sourced ingredients. It is important to the Tremila team to support local farmers, sourcing eggs from family farms around Victoria. Two types of flours are used in the pasta making process, durum wheat semolina and ‘00’ flour, both of which come from NSW. Known as the Golden Triangle, this region of Australia is popular for premium hard wheat growing environments due to its hot weather, which creates a grain high in protein and perfect for making pasta. The addition of ‘00’ flour adds a silky, smooth texture and organic Victorian olive oil and salt gives it a great seasoning. Pasta sauces are made without artificial flavours or refined sugars, unlike supermarket sauces, using Australian tomatoes, Victorian beef and locally grown vegetables. The Super Veg pasta sauce option has been extremely popular with families opting to choose a healthier dish containing six different kinds of vegetables. Furthermore, the fresh pasta lasts three weeks in the fridge, the sauces can last a couple months and best of all only takes three minutes to cook. Combine that cooking time with reheating a sauce for a few minutes in a pot, a vac pac pizza in the oven for five minutes and you can feed the entire family in 10 minutes.
Nine delicious pizza flavours are available to order at wholesale prices via the Tremila website and there are also options to substitute gluten free bases and vegan cheeses. Classic pizzas include Margherita ($11), Garlic & Cheese ($10.50), Pepperoni ($12), Capricciosa ($13), Pepperoni ($13) Vegetarian ($13.50), Hawaiin ($12.50), Sopressa ($14.50) and Chorizo ($14). Rotating fortnightly, a “special” pizza is also available and this week kicks off with a mouth watering Italian Sausage ($15.50) option. Pastas available include Fettucini, Spaghetti, Rigatoni and Torchio (all $10) and sauces to add including Napoli & Basil, Super Veg, Bolognese and Amatriciana (all $10).
Tremila now offers fun DIY dessert kits too. People can choose from a Cannoli Kit which consists of six cannoli shells, Sicilian ricotta, chocolate chips and crushed pistachios ($15) and an impressive Ricottamisu ($10), a spin on a classic tiramisu that is perfect to share between two. Again, making sure they are catering for all sweet lovers, Tremila are also launching a Lemon Cheesecake and Cherry Ripe version of the ricottamisu dish in the next two weeks for those looking to try something a little different.
Tremila dishes are prepared so they can be served in just a couple of minutes, making it easy for busy families and is a great option for people looking to support Melbourne born businesses.
For all orders, please visit www.tremila.com.au.
