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July/August 2023 IX MAGAZINE __________________________________ BOX Twenty-year-olds seen by twenty-year-olds: the ‘example’ of Grow. Chef Matteo Vergine, 26, with his brother Riccardo , 29, in the dining room, opened Grow, a trappeur restaurant in Albiate, Brianza, in 2021. ‘We take up the techniques and customs of our ancestors with ancestral cooking and wild, non-farmed ingredients, game and freshwater fish’. Very modern dishes that recall the flavours and ingredients available in yesteryear’s Lombardy. “We are also in our twenties, so it is easier to attract a younger clientele. Then we offer something new, different from the usual sushi, which intrigues so much. The 20-year-olds, contrary to what people say, arrive open minded and rely completely on us; the only thing they fear is the bill coming in. They are so eager to understand what’s behind the dishes and why we have made certain choices. Some may want to take such a step tomorrow and want to try to understand how they can do it. The experience of the food is a big part, but they are more intrigued by everything else, the concept, the technique,’ Matteo Vergine tells us. For young people (but there is no limit, although in fact it is used by the under-35s ‘because the 50-60 year old prefers to have his own type of meal’), there is the social table of eight, with a menu of simple dishes that become an opportunity to talk about nature, hunting, and tratteur cuisine in an easy environment. “It’s a time of sharing and conviviality, groups are created between people who don’t know each other but who perhaps then exchange numbers and return for other evenings”. In this case charcuterie, first and second courses and a mouth-watering dessert to share, drinks not included, cost 55 euro. Also on the menu now is a 55 euro all-year-round special (evenings are usually on Thursdays a couple of times a month). “We are also considering a dedicated menu for the Under 30s, or some kind of offer on all our menus, with a reduced formula.” How do you make yourself known to the young target audience? One would think of social media... ‘Social media actually goes in fits and starts, sometimes it works, you have eyes on you and then that’s it, it’s very up and down. The young person looks at you for a moment, then moves on to something else. The most successful things, which work best as promotion, are word of mouth and newsletters via WhatsApp’. __________________________________ AT PAGE 36 DID YOU KNOW? Digital: the cross and delight of restaurateurs TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION PROVES TO BE AN EFFECTIVE TOOL TO INCREASE BOOKINGS, SIMPLIFY PAYMENTS AND REDUCE THE NO- SHOW PHENOMENON. BUT IN HOME DELIVERY, PLATFORMS IMPOSE HEAVY AVERAGE FEES, WHICH FOR ONE IN THREE ESTABLISHMENTS EXCEED 20%. by Manuela Falchero The difficulties that are daily served on restaurateurs’ tables are, unfortunately, well known by now: inflation, rising energy costs and difficulties in finding staff. First Covid and then the economic repercussions of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have made it difficult for those operating in HORECA to make ends meet. To remain competitive, therefore, managers are being called upon to rethink processes and strategies. The good news is, however, that in this delicate and challenging transition, the managers themselves can count on a weapon that promises to prove effective: digitalisation. The numbers tell us, in fact, that technology pays off. According to a Kantar study conducted in 2022 for TheFork , users who book online go out to eat twice as often as others. And the same is true for gift cards, a formula that represents a valuable channel of additional cash flow for restaurants: customers who go to a restaurant with a gift card spend as much as 53% more. The apps then show that they also work at the crucial moment of the bill. This is confirmed, for example, by TheFork Pay, the service launched at the beginning of 2022 that allows payment directly from the app and that has seen a robust acceleration of use: in the last quarter of the year, it was able to record an increase of 43% compared to the first three months. The simplification of the process presumably plays in its favour. Not to mention that the service is also a candidate for being an excellent weapon for building loyalty. Chef Matteo Vergine , con il fratello Riccardo , Ristorante Grow