After the intense emergency period that has hit the whole country with a huge blow to the catering industry, we try to start again. Beyond the rules prescribed by the legislator, how are the star chefs moving? We wanted to ask some of them for advice for the restart.
Here the answers:
- Chicco Cerea, Restaurant Da Vittorio*** in Brusaporto
- Enrico Crippa, Restaurant Piazza Duomo*** in Alba
- Vincenzo Donatiello, Restaurant Piazza Duomo*** in Alba
- Marco Sacco, Restaurant Piccolo Lago** in Verbania
- Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani, Il Luogo di Aimo e Nadia** in Milan
- Philippe Léveillé, Restaurant Miramonti L’Altro** in Concesio
- Davide Oldani, D’O* Restaurant in Cornaredo
- Davide Palluda, Ristornate All’Enoteca* in Canale
- Vitantonio Lombardo, Vitantonio Lombardo Restaurant* in Matera
- Tano Simonato, Restaurant Tano Passami L’olio* in Milan
- Umberto De Martino, Florian Maison* Restaurant in San Paolo d’Argon
- Italo Bassi, Confusion Restaurant* in Porto Cervo
- Pietro Leemann, Joia* Restaurant in Milan
- Claudio Sadler, Sadler Restaurant* in Milan
- Chicco Cerea, restaurant Da Vittorio*** in Brusaporto
“There are two aspects that for me must be considered in order to reopen safely: planning and diversification. For example, we decided not to reopen immediately on May 18, but on May 21 because we wanted to plan everything perfectly: from the supply of raw materials to the running-in of the workers, so that the rhythms of the kitchen and dining room could get back into balance, from the definition of service shifts to the proposal of dishes. And then we have tried to diversify both the spaces and our gastronomic offer: during the summer we are working well in the outdoor area of Da Vittorio, but from June 1st we transform the swimming pool area of Cantalupa into a pop-up restaurant, where the menu will focus on pizza and bbq of excellence, to meet the needs of younger customers. Already at the beginning of the lockdown, we transformed our offer by launching the Delivery Da Vittorio @ Home service, which allowed us to keep in touch with customers as much as to keep our employees working”.
- Enrico Crippa, Restaurant Piazza Duomo*** in Alba
“The fundamental thing is not to distort what you have done in the past and what you are. There is no need to take easy or different roads from the one you have travelled so far, just to recover what you have lost in this period quickly. If you have worked well until yesterday, there is no need for drastic changes, nor to take backward steps or change customers, because you risk losing your own, consolidated in years of work. The important thing is instead to consolidate your thinking and continue from where you stopped, from that March nine, where there was the stop. Now it’s important to start from there, staying with your cooking philosophy to carry on, to show customers and people that you don’t distort yourself in the difficulties, indeed even in these situations you strengthen your identity, an identity built with work and professionalism”.
- Vincenzo Donatiello, Restaurant Piazza Duomo*** in Alba
The human factor will be the fundamental pillar of the restart. A professional who today can work in these difficulties, who demonstrates the skills and ways to reassure clients, who know how to tell and can tell himself, is the most important thing. Enhancing human capital is one of the keys to success in our profession today. If we have raised and grown impressive professionals alongside us, they can now face a different and modified reception situation. Also because right now we have two new ingredients in our work: safety and trust. We must, therefore, be able to establish and consolidate the relationship of trust with our old customers and those who will become our customers and make people understand that they can and should feel safe to be welcomed”.
- Marco Sacco, Restaurant Piccolo Lago** in Verbania
“The company must be set. Let’s not try to improvise. The cook makes the dish; he doesn’t make the restaurant, so you have to calculate well the management point of view. Let’s do the accounts, the accounts of the turnover of the day, understand what are the income and expenditure today because if we do not calculate this well in two months, we have to close! And from here you can start and do the good dishes, our work. We give certainties to our audience, we are serious, we are professionals, we have adequately equipped our premises, and then we invite our customers to go out! I see a huge difference between the suburbs and the city, Piccolo Lago in Mergozzo and Piano35 in Turin, a completely different approach of customers, in the city you are much more afraid. If a dish doesn’t work, let’s change it if the offer doesn’t work let’s change it; today maybe it’s time to make understandable dishes, simple, without exaggerated elaborations, expensive and elaborate techniques. Let’s go back to the essence of the Italian spirit, and let’s give vent to the dynamism and unlimited creation, let’s reinvent ourselves if we need to. Being open and standing at this time is already a success, so much essential practice and few mental lucubrations!”
- Alessandro Negrini and Fabio Pisani, The Place of Aimo and Nadia in Milan
“We are now approaching the long-awaited moment of reopening, and we believe that there is a strong desire to return to normal. While respecting all the rules, we feel that there is a deep need for humanity. At this stage, given the use of masks, the size of the smile and facial expressions will necessarily disappear. Still, precisely, for this reason, we believe that the role of words, dialogue and storytelling will be central again. The restaurant staff and the chefs themselves will have to take even greater care in welcoming customers, in making them feel safe, “pampered” with words”.
- Philippe Leveillé, Restaurant Miramonti L’Altro** in Concesio
“We in what we are doing are based on common sense, Daniela and I have reasoned about things to do, even beyond the rules imposed. We have not received any help, and we cannot wait to be helped, as my staff have not yet received the redundancy fund, so we need to roll up our sleeves and use common sense. Those who guide us have no competence to give indications about the reopening of restaurants, it was our common sense that made us consider that our restaurant, which can hold about 60 people, should only have 25 people. But this is our decision, by law, we could have put even more people because we have appropriate spacings and spaces, but we focus on safety. and in this, the actions we have taken are: create Casa Miramonti L’Altro, a new face of Miramonti. We already had huge, well-spaced tables. We have further increased these spaces, to give full security to the people, who must feel at home, so much so that we have also changed the name in Casa Miramonti L’Altro. We made two menus, one smaller or one larger, choosing from the dishes that I know my customers love the most, and then one menu, the Philippe menu, present only in order. The menus can be chosen entirely as a tasting or serve as a paper, and then everyone can select individual dishes. Kindness has always been the basis of our relationship with our customers, now it certainly is more and more, with one more element. The relationship has changed, it has become more friendly and human, with dialogues that without the coronaVirus probably would never have existed. There are 12 of us in the kitchen, and now we work in shifts of 4, in complete safety, with mask and hygiene more and more widespread, with a terminal hand washing of every single preparation. These habits will remain even at the end of the emergency. We continue to make ice cream in delivery and aperitif boxing with six mini plates, things that will continue throughout the summer. I am very positive in character, and I am convinced that if we get busy, we will necessarily get out of this situation, but we cannot wait for the State because at that point we would risk not opening up completely. And so I return to the importance of common sense, respect for the rules and finding solutions also in transmitting confidence to the group and customers. So it is right to reopen, with confidence, common sense and intelligence!”
- Davide Oldani, D’O* Restaurant in Cornaredo
“My advice is to keep working head down, perhaps even more thoughtfully, realizing that we are in the post CoronaVirus period. It is an excellent time to start from scratch, make a clean slate and have a unique opportunity to do this job in a new way. For us this means, for example, upgrading our service: we have removed four tables so that we will raise the quality in our premises even higher. We have many requests; the customer is doing well, helping and acting according to the needs of the restaurant. I think that in Italy there is considerable flexibility in the recovery of people’s approach to the restaurant and it is very flexible in new ways.
- Davide Palluda, Restaurant All’Enoteca* in Canale
“It is necessary to start again in complete peace of mind, giving the customer a sense of security, and asking the customer for the same, verifying the required spacings. Between the tables for us does not change much because we have space, and at most, we have a loss of 20% of seats. My guys often check the required distances at any time and with every arrangement! The numbers comfort us at the weekend, while during the week we miss all the business travellers and hotel guests, especially the international ones. We made a somewhat anti-business choice: we didn’t want to put the boys on lay-off, we opted for lighter hours, with shifts and opening only in the evening. Could be a new approach to our work, after this period of suspended time and reflection. We had come to have exhausting hours, so much so that we had difficulty in finding staff precisely because of the number of hours spent in the kitchen. This could be a new starting point, at least for our cooking philosophy. As far as the menu is concerned, we have decided to eliminate the more extended list, for reasons of supply and spending. We make a shorter menu, and we change it more often, so fewer dishes and more market cuisine, also because we will respond mainly to local customers, who are showing us great affection and who will come back more often to visit us. We have the menu in paper version, disposable. Still, we are pushing a lot on the one from QRcode, also to give more information to the customer and to be able to enter more details, connect more with the customer to build customer loyalty. The same goes for the wine list, which we also have in a plastic-coated, washable version. My thought is to maintain the quality line we have been doing for years, we haven’t adjusted the prices, and whoever is doing it should have thought about it before because it was already out of the market. Instead, we focus on customer loyalty, a customer who wants us to be available and ready to give him a more complete and new experience, to stimulate him more and more to go out. I want to make an invitation to everyone to go out, to enjoy the restaurant, even in new places, to help the new entrepreneurs who have put themselves at stake in this period to move forward. For me, the slogan must be to resist and take advantage of this restart to review some rules because the customer will be at the centre of our attention, more and more protagonist.
- Vitantonio Lombardo, Vitantonio Lombardo* restaurant in Matera
“We opened on the 28th evening, open every evening, and on Saturday and Sunday lunch and dinner; Tuesday closed and the other day’s lunch only by reservation. Today it is difficult to advise others because we realize even more that each situation is very different. Surely the choice of openness must coincide with a lack of enthusiasm and a desire to continue to do what we have always done in the first place. The main factor is to improve more customer confidence. In this, we have made available the VL CARD to the first 100 tables that will be booked, a card with which we will give a 25% discount from the following booking until 30/09/2020 each time they come back to visit us. As far as delivery is concerned, my advice is to be consistent: we have chosen not to do it because our offer cannot be combined with take-away”.
- Tano Simonato, Tano Passami L’Olio Restaurant in Milan
“I started with the idea of not opening, and I waited a long time. If it is a restaurant of a certain level (allow me the distinction, I want to differentiate the costs, not the style), with huge costs already at the base, then I think it is not convenient to open. The moment you open in this situation, the problems begin, because it ends the redundancy fund, you have to pay rent, taxes … a series of high costs, which would not be repaid by restaurants that have to work halfway through, in a situation of general fear. I’d like to be the Merlin Wizard with the crystal ball and give precise indications on the needs of the restart … I can not do it, or rather I do not think I have to do it because I have already been accused several times of conspiracy … I still think that the real problem is not the Corona Virus, but that “magic” that is creating around us (and by magic, you understand what I mean!). I finally found myself reopening a few days ago, and we did it out of desperation, I can no longer stay closed and not cook. I think that life should continue in its healthy way of working, of people, of customers and friends, so we need to start again. The advice I can give is to invent as many things as possible in work, doing the best, in terms of evenings, tastings, events, with creativity to attract and involve people to go out … because people should be taken by the hair and taken out!”
- Umberto De Martino, Florian Maison* restaurant in San Paolo D’Argon
“We started again with unexpected results. A word of advice? Show the guests the most beautiful smile you have, they won’t see your mouth, but they will notice it from your eyes, they will feel more pampered than before. We also started with delivery, especially to pamper those who have not yet disposed of the anxiety of being among people you don’t know, and the results are not bad”.
- Italo Bassi, Restaurant Confusion* in Porto Cervo
“We have resumed from the exact point where we stopped. Indeed I like to say from point 2.0 that is our rebirth, because after this turbulent period we want to express ourselves at our best, even more than what we have done in recent years, reorganizing the room and kitchen with great professionals and great ambitions to achieve high results. We have not changed anything; we have improved the search for products, dishes and our desire to grow. We have embellished the place I repeat without upsetting anything. And this is the main point: to improve and not to distort our philosophy and our thoughts. It is necessary to go ahead with great courage because the results will come, and in this case more than ever the saying “When you close a door you open a door!” is right!
- Pietro Leemann, Joia* Restaurant in Milan
“Our reopening is following a bit the trend of the Milanese movement, so a more local clientele since there are no events, open companies and foreign tourism. I believe that differentiation is always rewarding, so everyone must make a personalized offer, linked to the real personality of the chef, and therefore completely transparent, even in terms of raw materials, without using products that perhaps facilitate the work of some chefs but unify the entire production. I have excellent colleagues who can enhance the great Italian catering. From a philosophical point of view, I am for the stand back, for downsizing of this carriage that at times had become an exaggeration compared to the real market and real needs. So I decided to restart opening only five days, concentrate in those days, do my job well dedicating myself to the catering. In the restart, it is important to think about what are the values that ultimately led us to this crisis. All are mainly related to a society that moves too fast, to a tired planet and also to the health of many tired people. On this we need an update, a significant change that we restaurateurs can implement, improving the healthiness of our recipes, choosing organic products, from small and non-industrial suppliers, aiming at a non-pollution or less pollution as possible. The world is the mirror of our existence, so by improving the world, we live. We promote ourselves even more quickly than we think, also because when we are friends of nature and friends of ourselves, we are more satisfied and more fulfilled, even in the work we do”.
- Claudio Sadler, Sadler Restaurant* in Milan
“We have reopened intending to start from what we are, intending to transmit full security to the customers who choose us and continue to choose us. We need to respect the rules imposed, widening the tables, and trying to live this passage in the best possible way even with the mask in the room, which partially blocks the communicative relationship with customers, to whom we must smile with our eyes! For the time being, our usually hectic work has become more of a walk, a walk rather than a run, but the primary importance is to instil confidence in our customers, for us, it starts from here”.
by Nadia Toppino
Food – Wine & Hospitality Consultant