Massimo Di Sora was born in the dead centre of Rome, within view of a famous 4th century cathedral. He's nearly 60 now. "Fifty-eight," he says, cradling a short and thick black coffee. "Or something like that."
He is a waiter at Marios in Fitzroy, Melbourne's most iconic cafe. Di Sora was the first person owners Mario Maccarone and Mario De Pasquale employed and he has been there since. The cafe has been running 30 years this month. The actual birthday on April 28 will see 1986 prices for the day.
"I don't want too much," Di Sora says, his English still very Roman. "I just want job. This job very, very fair to me."
When he started at Marios in 1987 he had learned a bit of English at his first job in Melbourne, at a pizza place in Carlton. But only the numbers: "Pizza number three," he says. "Pizza number eight."
One of those had pineapple on it, which was a wake-up call. His mother Giovanna was a "home cook" who ended up owning several small restaurants in Rome. His father Vittorio sold insurance but couldn't work after 45 because of health problems. So Di Sora and his three siblings had to help. When it got late, he would sleep on chairs.
"First two chairs, then three chairs," he says. He kept growing. "Finally four chairs."
Di Sora first came to Melbourne in 1981. Then he came back in 1986 and got married for the visa but the marriage has never faltered.
He lives with his Australian wife in Northcote; she brought him to Marios one day just after it opened. "To get me a proper coffee," he says. He was offered a job.
The place had only three tables. The whole back section wasn't there yet, it was still a coolroom from the original tenant, a butcher.
The two Marios opened the place, with another partner who left quickly, after working together at Miettas and Tsindos Bistrot.
Mario Maccarone also worked up the road at the Black Cat, a bar and music venue. With Rhumberallas, Bakers, hallowed venue the Punters Club, as well as Marios, the '90s heyday of Brunswick Street was born.
Marios – unfussy Italian food, open late, breakfast all day, good coffee and pasta, art on the walls, no bookings, sharp waiters – became the centre. It still is, in a way, even though the strip has been gentrified and tidied up and a lot of cafes can struggle for business now.
"The amazing thing is we are basically the same," says Mario Maccarone. "Don't mess with what you have done right for 30 years."
In 1998 Jerry Seinfeld famously called Melbourne the "anus" of the world after his people rang the cafe four times to make a booking. But there are no bookings, never have been. It doesn't matter who you are. Just come in, have a coffee in the window seats, maybe browse the bookstore next door while you wait.
Melbourne's best-known chef Andrew McConnell started coming in 1989, aged 22 or so. "I had my first cafe latte there," he told me. He was an apprentice chef at Marchetti's Latin and lived on Marios penne puttanesca when he wasn't working. "No pomp, no ceremony, just consistent and caring. No one is ever spoken down to."
Another veteran waiter is David Ding. He moved from China after Tiananmen Square, started washing dishes, became a waiter, bought and sold two businesses of his own, and is still a waiter, four nights a week.
Massimo Di Sora has worked the nightshift all this time. Starts at 6pm. It's Fitzroy so people come in and order breakfast at 8pm.
The joke among staff is that no one has ever seen him during the day: "It's true I am a night owl," he says.
"Even a doctor's appointment must be not before 2pm."
He has peeled garlic and shelled peas and mopped the floor but found his spot as a well-dressed waiter on the floor, always very Roman but also so very, very Melbourne.
