QUALITALY 138

Januar y/Februar y 2024 III MAGAZINE most expensive dishes, such as lobster and T-Bones, by as much as 40%. And they won the gamble, increasing sales by as much as 60%. “In addition to our customers, people we had never seen before were coming in,” said one restaurateur, Peter Schuster, “We created a new market for people we had never seen before. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. The fact remains that raising prices is not always a good idea. ‘We have kept them stable,’ says Federica Grasso, general manager of Soulgreen, two ‘sustainable and inclusive cuisine’ venues in Milan and Dubai, ‘and people no longer complain about prices, which they used to do sometimes, believing that a vegetable dish had to be cheap. Without knowing the enormous work behind it’. SHARED DISHES AND SHIFTS Silvano Vini & Cibi Al Banco, the new project of Cesare Battisti and Federica Fabi in the now gentrified Milanese neighbourhood of NoLo, certainly has no problem with empty tables, so much so that they have immediately introduced shifts: three in the evening. The cuisine is generous and - making a virtue of necessity (we are in a former bakery) - entirely baked, with traditional dishes such as Russian salad ‘revamped’ with onions instead of peas, for example. Recommended sharing and affordable wines (a one-litre Massa cellar red for 27 euro, for example) and dishes priced between 5 and 15 euro (for the thick Piedmont ox carpaccio). “We have set ourselves not to go above 18 euros, in special cases such as a ceviche with plenty of fish. We’re aware that meat prices have doubled recently,’ says chef Vladimiro Poma, from western Liguria. And the shifts? “We don’t have big problems, many of our customers (and from greetings and exchanges of jokes you can tell that many are aficionados, ed.) have been used to seeing them abroad. We are also very flexible, if there’s a free table after the scheduled time we rotate everything. The only moments that are a bit hectic happen at the change between shifts’. A place that has hit the mark, where you can eat well, at reasonable prices, a cuisine that the Anglo-Saxons call comfort but with selected ingredients. Above all, what makes the difference is the ‘human factor’: Poma and the staff are attentive, smiling and move with grace and fluidity between the counter (where, of course, you eat) and the crowded tables. Just like in an old tavern. “Here we work five days a week, only in the evening until midnight, at lunchtime only on weekends. Catering is hard, that’s why the younger people don’t want to do it anymore. But if the working atmosphere is relaxed and positive, the customer feels it”. __________________________________ BOX Strategies for winning back the customer More than fixed price, of course. In this historical period, the customer is often put off by not knowing how much he will spend because sometimes even choosing a tasting menu including wine, service, cover charge and distillate at the end of the meal, you know where you start but you don’t know where you’ll end up. Choice and flexibility. The ‘dictatorship’ of the tasting menu can be softened by giving a choice, but always within fixed- price ‘modules’ and with the possibility of choosing which and how many to buy. Promotions and partnerships. Agreeing with other restaurateurs in the area on a fixed-price menu linked to an occasion or festival gives the customer the opportunity to explore and get to know new places that may have been considered inaccessible (while promoting one another) Shifts, also for us. Shifts make it possible to maximise place settings, even tripling them in an evening. But they must be managed smoothly and finesse. Sociable tables and menus. These create an informal, convivial atmosphere that invites people to return: and regular customers, as we know, are a restaurant’s most valuable asset. Cover charge, yes or no? Preferably not. Lazio has abolished it altogether, but it is still widespread in Italy. It drives up the bill and isn’t appreciated by the customer, especially in harder times. Does bread cost