Berberè and Bar 45 

0:11Hello and welcome to The Entrepreneurs on Monocle Radio, the show all about inspiring people, innovative companies and fresh ideas in global business. Today's programme is something of an ode to Italian family business. First, we'll meet two brothers from Bologna who turned their passion for pizza into a thriving chain that's made its mark across Italy and beyond. Our family is not from restaurants, not from pizzas. So we came from different experience and we were forced to think about a new way to approach the pizza product. And later we'll toast the chosen family with two friends shaking up and maybe stirring London's cocktail scene.

0:52You need to know very well what your guests at your bar likes and you need to twist the flavour in something very sophisticated and very unique. That's how you win. This is The Entrepreneurs with me, Tom Edwards.

1:14You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Brothers Salvatore and Matteo Aloy are the co-founders of Berbera, a small but fast-growing chain of pizzerias known for their fluffy sourdough crusts made fresh daily with organic flour. They launched the business in their hometown of Bologna back in 2010. Since then, Berbera has expanded to 21 locations across Italy and ventured into international markets, including right here in the UK. They have three pizzerias in London. The brothers stopped by Midori House to discuss the secrets behind their success. Matteo started out by telling me about the start of the business.

1:52Our brand started in 2010, so a little bit of a journey now, 15 years. Our idea was to make a great pizza, so starting from the product, then in a beautiful environment, we say, at least beautiful according to us, served with care. So also, how can I say, this type of service made with kind people. This is our USP. I mean, it's a simple pizzeria, if we can describe like this, serving pizza, that is the main product, and that's it. And if we go back to those early days in Bologna, of course, I guess your hometown, I guess the sort of the signature component, Salve, is maybe the dough. Is that fair to say?

2:35I mean, I think obviously with pizza, right? But tell us a little bit about, I don't know, how you knew you had something that was special. On our hands. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's right. We need to go back in 2010 when we decide, I don't know why, to open a pizzeria in a country that is packed of pizzeria, of course. I mean, there are more than 120 ,000 pizzeria in Italy. So, of course, it was like madness, you know, decided to open a pizzeria. So we try because we came from different experience and backgrounds that not includes restaurateurs. Our family is not from restaurants, not from pizzas.

3:14So we were forced to think about a new corner, you know, a new way to approach the pizza product. So the new way become a very old one and making as well as the first day, every day in every single pizzeria we run now, the dough we call a living sourdough dough and Matteo can explain better than me because it's a bit technical but this probably make the big difference I mean having a fantastic sourdough process that at the end result I mean we think better to enjoy better to you know it's more fun to make to train to have yeah well and talk of training because your brother explained that you're you're the maybe on the technical food side you've trained in some incredible kitchens you're the sort of the chef brains Tell me a bit about how you used all that experience that you have, Matteo, to then help to devise.

4:10And some of the things I know, is it all your chefs at sites, they have to take the thermometer readings, they have to share it. It's very technical. Tell me how you developed that approach and those skills. Yeah, I mean, Salva complains because I spend a lot of money on equipments in the kitchen. Why we need a prover? Why we need an art machine? It's all equipments. I explain every time we open a pizzeria that are necessary to control what is still a very artisanal process. So at the end, we control a weight with scales that everyone has in the kitchen, time with clocks. And these are the cheapest equipments.

4:48And then we need some, let's say, provers where we control the temperature during all the 24 hours that it takes to ferment. So at the end, the goal was let's make the best pizza possible. And we started from zero because we never made a pizza in a professional way. And this helped to start from zero with no, yeah, with no cage in our mind. So what we do is refresh the yeast every day. It's more kind of, let's say, yeah, in London, you can find a lot of sourdough bread. and then Copenhagen where I work it's easy to find sourdough bread wasn't easy in Italy so when we started to communicate our technique this became a little bit our USP going back to our beginning of the discussion and did that upset people?

5:39because I know, you know, Italy like any market where there's a product that is so baked in, if you'll forgive the pun into the culture of the place did people say, hey, Matteo yeah, like the innovation but leave it alone This is our thing. This is our heritage. Why are you messing around with it? Did that happen a little bit? To be honest, we opened in Bologna. That doesn't have a strong heritage on pizza and bread. Maybe they have on tagliatelle, tolterrini, lasagna. So we were lucky enough, let's say, to open in Bologna, where we were welcoming, and also Milan. So north of Italy was more open-minded about the pizza.

6:14But to be honest, also in Italy, there are Napolitan style, Roman style, so different kind of pizza. So it didn't happen, to be honest. So it was a good proving ground, really. Yeah, and also we didn't say that it was wrong. We still don't say that it's a wrong way. This is our way. We think it's good, as good as other ways to make it. And so also this approach, we weren't teaching people how to make a good pizza. At the end of the day, it's always a pizzeria. And it's where the people came from, you know, to have an hour with their friends. I mean, you don't have to teach lessons, otherwise you bought them.

6:53It's a fun place. I mean, all this complicated process, it's about us. We don't need to annoy people about the weirdo stuff. In fact, we explain always like, I mean, if someone asks about, I mean, a customer, of course, asks about our dough, we say, what do you want, the nerd version or the dumbest one? because it's, I mean, we can be very nerdy, of course, but it's not necessary. I mean, it's a pizza place. It's not, you know, a Michelin star restaurant. You need to be fun. I mean, pizza's a fun thing. And this is what's great about it. There is great complexity, like anything that looks simple, but there's also simplicity.

7:37I think that's why people love it. Let's talk a little bit, Salva, about your background then. What were you doing in 2010? And what did your, I don't know, the rest of your family, your friends, colleagues at the time say when you said, right, I'm going to go and do this? Did they say, you're crazy. Take us back to the start. Yeah, my mom still, she doesn't understand why I'm not working at a bank. I mean, coming home every night at the same hour, joking apart. Yeah, I mean, I was in a big retail development company. So I was looking on, you know, develop concepts and schemes for other brands.

8:14basically and Mateo yeah we already know he's younger than me he become he graduates in Bologna as well as me and he was coming from you know little experience on the restaurants so we decided to open something by ourselves and as Mateo said Bologna is not a big tradition on pizza it's a fun fact I mean the first pizzeria in Bologna is 1954 so in New York at the time there were like 6 ,000 pizzerias So that's weird because Naples, I mean, the distance between Naples and Bologna is like 500 kilometers. And the first pizzeria was just in the 50s. This is unbelievable. So we decided to focus our attention on pizzeria just because we cannot find a good pizza in Bologna, in our city.

9:05So this was the research. Well, that's the great entrepreneur, right? Identifies the gap in the market. Yeah. And seeks to fill it. Tell me then about the growth, though, because you've got so many sites now. And of course, we'll talk in a second about right here in London. Yeah, yeah. Three that I think Tottenham Court Road opened recently. Yeah, I mean, a couple of months ago. So still pretty fresh. But with that expansion to your other sites, of course, across Bologna, but then in Torino and Milano and so on. Yeah. How quickly did you realize that was going to be doable? I mean, was that part of the ambition at the beginning or did that kind of...

9:40No. That's true. I mean, probably we realized for the first time that we can a little bit scale our brand on the opening of the third one. So until then, we were like, oh, let's try another one. The goal was to survive. Yeah, try to survive. You know, I mean, probably with another one, we can, you know, work better. And it was easy until the second one, because we opened the first one in a very small village close by the city center in Bologna. The second one was in the city center in Bologna. So we were basically every day there. I mean, Matteo was in the kitchen always, every day, myself. I used to work, still to work with other people.

10:25But at the end of the day, we were together in the restaurants. And the first one, when we realized we can scale it, was when we opened Florence. That is half an hour, 40 minutes distance by train, by Bologna. but this is enough to force us to think about how to train better our people well i wanted to ask you about this matter because i listen and you may argue with this but chefs chefie types quite particular correct not necessarily they don't necessarily enjoy handing over control is that a fair a fair point so how as you reach that scale and you have to delegate you have to trust other people was that was that difficult for you because it was kind of your baby right and then you got to kind of let it go how did that process work for you yeah i mean since day one when we founded the first one we said okay we have to share our knowledge because it's impossible to die in a kitchen 60 hours and now it's actual this discussion and also when i was at i did an internship at noma after opening the second one what i learned is nothing about cooking but a lot of all the head chefs were more like head of production with clipboards going around the kitchen to make sure everything was as planned to make 2 ,000 dishes a day.

11:46And so the thing was, okay, to make a high quality, we have to train better. The time was the first one in the 50 top. Yeah, and how we can keep making high quality while we grow as a company is the keys. Let's share, let's train. I mean, let's make also the training as simple as possible to be understood by young generation, people that maybe don't know nothing about bread making. And this is what we are now, like still in this process, because like we are changing manuals from paper to digital to videos. We use a lot of WhatsApp to control and to make sure that everyone measures the temperature.

12:24So it's a kind of journey that doesn't stop. Yeah. At the end, it's all about building a culture. I mean, more than, you know, a recipe. I mean, if everyone is in the same culture, on the same care, on doing good stuff, it will be easier. Of course, then you need the technique and you need the secrets, etc., etc. But the most important thing is create the right environment, the right culture about the quality. I mean, we have like 10 points in our welcome pack and only one is a dogma. We use exactly this word that is more about religion because it's the only thing that never will change. And it's about we do quality, quality, quality and quality.

13:10It's everything. I mean, it's following the process. It's welcome people. It's smiling. It's having a treat well, your colleague. It's having good music. Exactly. Well, let me ask you about that. We're sat in Monocle's radio studio. Why radio? Because you've got your kind of radio station. It's a building block of that same culture. Yeah, exactly. This happened, honestly, because we were working in one of our restaurants one night, I mean, when we were running like four restaurants. Four or five, yeah. Four or five. It was a very bad song. And because we are, I mean, little collectors of vinyls and music, we love good music, of course, we were a bit annoying.

13:51So we went... More than bad, it was a very sad song. The manager broke with his girlfriend. So it was sad, but we couldn't accept to transfer this sadness to everyone that was having a pizza. So we said, how we can have the same music at the same moment in all the pizzeria with the right vibe, because Monday morning is different, Friday night. And so we said we have to set up a radio. Yeah, it's a great idea. After a long research, because the first thing, if you Google it, I mean, there are a lot of companies that sell the playlist, But we don't really want our playlist. We say, oh, it's much more than our playlist.

14:31It's building, you know, a momentum. It's something that changes every day. So what's the best to do this? It's a radio, because a radio is a live thing. And my mate from the uni, it's a DJ, it's a great collector. And I asked him, we asked him, what we can do. I said, oh, actually, I'm more in the web radio in this moment, because wherever it's free, it's the new free radio, the new pirate radio, you know. It's a good idea. And we set up the radio and now we have like 60 ,000 songs. Everyone is tugged with the energy, with the, you know, the gender, the momentum, and we play, yeah, like a proper radio.

15:14It's food, other food for the soul. I love that, obviously, as an audiophile myself. Just tell me one thing, because we mentioned London, so you've got a restaurant in Kentish Town, on my old stomping grounds, Tottenham Court Road as well. And the first one was in Clapham from 2020. How well does this brand travel? Because as you said, it's all about hospitality. It's all about the people. People love pizza everywhere, of course. But how is London? Were you surprised in some ways? Mati, did you have to not change the product, but how do you reflect the differences of your diners in the different places?

15:48Yeah, to be honest, we think that the market is same. I mean, the use of the pizzeria. Of course, we had to learn what is, how can I say, British palate, or what people don't understand because it's something too far from the pizza world. But to be honest, we learned a lot of stuff in London that we apply in Italy. Even in terms of... What kind of things did you learn from London? I don't know, like... The finest... Melted cheese. Yeah. In London, you cannot see a cheese that is not melted on pizza. To be honest, it's right, because pizza is still a dirty food. It has to be something that you want to crave.

16:27It's a guilty pleasure. Yeah, it's a guilty pleasure. I would say we import the dipping sauce for crust. I mean, this is very far from the Italian pizza culture. It's more American, you know. People were asking here for a dip sauce. So we tasted aioli with our crust and we said, well, it's good. Let's make this also in Italy. And in Italy, they found this like a genius idea. I love that. That surprises me that we, with our bad, maybe sometimes bad reputation in terms of international gastronomy here, maybe there's things we can watch each other. It's absolutely no. I mean, it's not, how can I say?

17:12Sometimes Italians are too fundamentalist. Yeah. Listen, the only fundamentalism I agree with is when it comes to food, generally in life. Listen, chaps, tell me about what comes next. So what are you up to now? 20, how many venues? How many different properties? 23. 23. Yeah, 20 in Italy and three in London. What's the vision? Where are we going to be? 50? 100? Where next? How do you guys look to the future? Honestly, we never, I mean, think like that. I mean, of course, now we are 400 people, I mean, working on the same roof. And there are also new energies, even better than ours. So the idea is always growing, but doesn't mean just in number of stores.

17:58I mean, growing means doing other stuff. I mean, like the radio, it's not, it's a big effort, but it's not about the business, you know, not directly. So, of course, we are looking to, I mean, Londo has a great opportunity. We are happy of that. Yeah, the stores are going very well. People enjoy our products. We have a great team. Yeah, the team is great. And the team helps a lot also on new plans. So probably it's abused the world organically, but it's exactly what happened. I mean, with our team that is growing, and when you have a good team, of course you look for, let's go another one because we have a good assistant manager or a nice general manager.

18:41they can handle another one so yeah i mean we are looking to grow in london we are looking other sites because the restaurants are going very well and london is a gate i mean it's uh everyone look at london in the world so if there is a dream that i have it's going around the world working with our brand this is the dream that was salvatore and mateo aloe the founders of Berbere. Do find out more. Head on over to berberepizzeria.co.uk or if you're in Italy, visit berberepizza.it. And do check out their newest spot in Rome, which just opened this very week.

19:36You're listening to The Entrepreneurs. Now, how do you follow a great pizza? Maybe with some drinks. And I'm joined now by somebody who knows a thing or two about drinking. That's her chuckling away in the background. It's our Laura Kramer. Two weeks in a row, Laura, you join me here in the studio. What excitement. And what an intro, I have to say. Thank you for that. Now, listen, we were talking with a brilliant business, family business, supremely excellent pizzas. If our audience aren't familiar, they need to get stuck in. But you made, I think, the very sage suggestion that something complements pizza rather elegantly as you see it.

20:17Aperitivos, cocktails, the alcohol, I think, is really what does it. Now, I think you know, I know quite well the executive chef at 45 Park Lane. It's a hotel here in Mayfair. We've been a few times. I was at his Oscar party that he did before he went off to L.A. to indeed feed Hollywood's elite. And while there, this all happened at Bar 45. And while there, I got to meet Enrico Perry and Mario Gualtieri there, the bar manager and assistant bar manager. I recently heard that they were working on a new cocktail menu, which I did get to try at the time. So, of course, I wanted to talk to them, but also just about the state of the hospitality business.

20:55You know, we keep hearing so few people are going into hospitality. They're not seeing it as a long-term career. These guys were so full of passion for what they were doing. They were overflowing with ideas for the menu and what to do. And they really approached it as if it was their own business. So they stopped by Midori House recently. And I have to tell you, because this is about Italian family. They are Italian themselves. They have such a fun story. They met 20 years ago. And it all happened. It was quite unforgettable because it was at university in Cosenza, southern Italy. Essentially, Enrico was cooking dinner when Mario jumped through his window on the balcony to get into the apartment.

21:37He was actually going for Enrico's flatmate. He was trying to find him, but he wasn't there. And what do you do? You don't call. You just jump through the balcony. That makes sense. Anyway, he showed up, made this big entrance with a bottle of vodka. And ever since then, I guess they just developed this friendship. And then that eventually led them trying different things with different alcohols and herbs and really playing along with this. Eventually, both made their way to London. And now they're both at Bar 45 working on new menus. So tell us what we're going to hear. You were talking to them about their new cocktails.

22:09What do they have to say about that? Well, it's a really cool concept for the menu itself. I got to try actually three cocktails. Thank you, as always, too, for providing me with the ability to drink on the job, Tom. I started out with a Negroni, but... I don't recall this being agreed officially. I think you'll find it's actually in my contract. But it was an aged Negroni, which was really nice. But Enrico began by telling me about the new cocktail menu. It's the second one since they've taken over Bar 45. It's called Simplicity, and it went live this week. Simplicity is really a concept that explains the drinks in an easy way, but then I have to say it's not very simple, like the drinks are not very simple.

22:53We want to transform something quite complicated in a very easy, understandable way for our guests. There was the concept to go a little bit against the trend, which is a lot of words on the menu, a lot of images and then the flavor of the drink and the actual ingredient of the drink is sometimes very complicated to understand for our guests. We want to take it back to the simple part. That's why we choose only to mention the flavor inside the drink and not all the preparation we do. Then, of course, if the guest asks for the preparation we use, It's a way to engage with them and to explain a little bit better our story and how we made the drinks.

23:38Well, let's then get into why we're here, which is I have to explain to listeners. We've got ice that you brought in yourselves from 45 Park Lane, square shaped, very beautiful ice. So I can understand why you didn't want to go for our ice machine, which is also really nice, but it's not as nice as this. We've got all these concoctions and flowers and fruit. I think let's get started because it's definitely time for a cocktail. I think it's a respectable hour. Yeah. So we're going to have one here today. And the one we choose is Italo Samba. Italo Samba is from our umami section. So it's a drink that Mario will definitely explain you in a better way because it's this drink.

24:23He made it together with our bartender Victor, which is a Brazilian bartender. and the drink is a combination of two very famous and epic cultures. So Mario, do you want to...? Yeah, I like to define the Italo Samba like the best expression of two of the most epic cultures in the world, the Italian one and the Brazilian one. So as many ingredients, of course, we will have the Brazilian national spirits, that is the cachaça. After, we introduce our little touch, that is a strawberry and tomato cordial and as a Italian touch we will have fortified vermuth fortified wine from the Barolo region when we mix all these ingredients together we have this refreshing fruity bomb that has also some saltiness some umami from the tomato and the fortified wine, the Barolo, give to the cocktail the final touch, the balsamic finish.

25:28Definitely. And that's why it's in the umami section also. There's this balsamic taste then, together with the tomato taste. And also tomato is, of course, the Italian touch, together with the Barolo wine, aromatized wine. And how do you approach creating the menu? Definitely. Absolutely. This is actually the most complicated part of our job, I believe. First of all, we made some mistakes in the past. So we made the drink list on what we expect. And we realize after a bit that is wrong for the business anyway. That's part of the experience anyway, to be a bar manager and a system bar manager. With the future, we adapt our drinks to our guests.

26:15so you need to know very well what your guests at your bar likes and you need to twist the flavor in something very sophisticated and very unique that's how you win on your new drink list on a business perspective and that's what we did then it's very difficult to combine your creativity with what your guest wants that's where our expertise comes out we are able to merge everything together and to mix actually everything together for the perfect cocktail well let's try it I'm very excited ready to dance hello samba for you well cheers gentlemen cheers the best sound oh wow so amazing yeah it's different layers of flavors I believe so the extraction of the flavor it's where we work most in the past eight months for the menu.

27:13So every extraction that we did, it's very clear. You don't see the thickness of the tomato, the color of the tomato, because we clarified all the drinks and actually the preparation we do. This is a process that gives smoothness to the drink and also the nice velvety finish. I like that it's not too sweet, because that's a big thing for me. I don't really like too sweet cocktails, and this is excellent, really nice. And how long is the menu on? It's going to be from yesterday to the next one, which I think will be next year, probably. Let's see, next year. We change every year now, but we thought also to give a little bit of seasonality to the menu.

27:55We're going to tweak some cocktails, you know, during this year as well. And you've had to make some tweaks, I guess I should say, to the menu anyway, because we're seeing this trend of people not drinking as much. And so you've obviously thought about that, incorporated that. Let's talk about the non-alcoholic options. Not that I would ever partake, but for some people they might want to. No, definitely that's a trend now. And we have one mocktail here for you to try. Also Mario created the cocktail. Yeah, basically, you know, I was looking for inspiration and I found this old recipe from the 20s, 30s.

28:35basically it's a mix of fruits you mix different berry passion fruits tropical fruits and after of course my idea was to do a rum punch so we have two versions of this we have the alcoholic version and the one not so punchy that is the non-alcoholic the punch is in the flavor for that one in the meantime i'm pouring the drink and we start to shake it so now this is the sound of love That's what we say.