Latest / The Restaurant Guys / Authentic Italian Food vs. the Algorithm | Vincenzo Prosperi

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Authentic Italian Food vs. the Algorithm | Vincenzo Prosperi · The Restaurant Guys

• 0:40
  MIC2: [Mic bleed] restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
• 0:52
  MIC2: We're here to bring you the inside food, wine, and the
• 0:55
  Speaker 10: finer things in life.
• 0:56
  MIC1-1: today.
• 0:57
  MIC1-1: our guest is Vincenzo Prosperi.
• 0:59
  MIC1-1: He is, the proprietor of Vincenzo's Plate.
• 1:03
  MIC1-1: It's a YouTube channel.
• 1:05
  MIC1-1: Through his different media, through his platforms, last year he had 574
• 1:11
  Speaker 8: million views.
• 1:12
  Speaker 8: He is the most listened to podcast in the English-speaking world on Italian
• 1:18
  MIC2: cuisine and we had to have him on the show'cause Francis wouldn't shut up love this guy's podcast
• 1:24
  Speaker 8: I found him.
• 1:25
  Speaker 8: There were a are great.
• 1:28
  Speaker 8: He started with reaction videos.
• 1:31
  Speaker 8: a real professional.
• 1:32
  Speaker 8: He's in the food business.
• 1:32
  MIC1-1: He's not a chef in a restaurant.
• 1:34
  Speaker 8: He lives in Australia, which is why we may not have heard of him.
• 1:37
  Speaker 8: A lot of our majority of our States, but we do have Australian we encourage all of you to write in.
• 1:44
  Speaker 8: If you like Vincenzo's Plate, the, the
• 1:46
  MIC1-1: at RestaurantGuysPodcast.com.
• 1:48
  MIC1-1: And
• 1:48
  Speaker 10: are also number three in
• 1:50
  MIC1-1: We- I thought everybody should know that.
• 1:51
  MIC1-1: That is not the English-speaking world, though everyone in Poland does speak English.
• 1:54
  MIC1-1: Uh, so super happy to have him on later.
• 1:56
  MIC1-1: But I would like to talk today about events and how important they have always been to us, and I think how important they are to restaurants overall.
• 2:09
  Speaker 10: Well, I, I'll tell you, Francis and I have been doing events 10, 12, 15, year, over the years, but the idea
• 2:19
  MIC2: they have been...
• 2:21
  MIC2: is to generate excitement for the restaurant.
• 2:24
  MIC2: But I think the we never
• 2:26
  Speaker 10: really talk about, also to generate excitement for us.
• 2:30
  MIC1-1: Oh, and the staff, yeah.
• 2:31
  MIC1-1: And the
• 2:33
  Speaker 10: doing these events insert and a kind of energy and a kind of fun-ness that- I don't think we'd be there without the
• 2:43
  MIC1-1: I also think the way that we do events is different than a lot of folks.
• 2:47
  MIC1-1: It's not about marketing.
• 2:49
  MIC1-1: Mm-hmm.
• 2:49
  MIC1-1: And you may wonder why we're talking about this,'cause obviously we have a lot of people in the restaurant business who listen to us, and I think o- o- one of the things that's just interesting is you always see a calendar
• 2:58
  Speaker 8: where there's a wine dinner or, or some- New Year's Eve party is coming
• 3:03
  MIC2: And we have a calendar like that
• 3:05
  Speaker 8: We do.
• 3:05
  Speaker 8: And I think the, those things are great, corporate restaurants driven by the
• 3:11
  MIC2: department.
• 3:11
  MIC2: Mm-hmm.
• 3:12
  Speaker 8: And we have never driven by the marketing department.
• 3:17
  Speaker 8: a department.
• 3:17
  MIC2: We don't have a- It's just the two of us,
• 3:20
  MIC1-1: but what we're
• 3:20
  MIC2: we're doing- You are listening to the marketing department.
• 3:23
  MIC2: Yeah.
• 3:23
  MIC2: Hello, and human resources department all in one.
• 3:23
  Speaker 8: and
• 3:26
  MIC1-1: But what we try to
• 3:27
  Speaker 8: do with our restaurant overall our marketing is do interesting things that we wanna you all with us.
• 3:34
  Speaker 8: Mm-hmm.
• 3:34
  Speaker 8: Like go visit places where stuff and bring it back to New Brunswick, New along.
• 3:41
  Speaker 8: And
• 3:42
  MIC1-1: those sorts of things are really organic.
• 3:44
  MIC1-1: And every time I read what people are doing for marketing now, it's people now want authenticity and they want, an in-person experience.
• 3:51
  MIC1-1: I'm like,"Yeah, that's, that's what we do."
• 3:54
  Speaker 9: to
• 3:54
  Speaker 10: our- I talk about this to our waiters all the
• 3:55
  MIC2: time.
• 3:58
  Speaker 10: talking to a table about the Talk about something you love.
• 4:04
  Speaker 10: Talk about something that extraordinary here.
• 4:07
  Speaker 10: Talk about something that you're really passionate
• 4:11
  MIC1-1: about Yeah.
• 4:11
  Speaker 10: And you don't have to
• 4:14
  MIC2: sell the halibut special of the
• 4:16
  Speaker 10: 'cause the halibut's gonna go bad.
• 4:18
  MIC1-1: Right, right, right.
• 4:19
  MIC1-1: And waiters who worked in other restaurants look at me like,"Really?
• 4:23
  MIC1-1: It's not just about pushing whatever product of the day you No, it's about getting the people who come here excited.
• 4:30
  MIC1-1: It's about you Yes.
• 4:32
  MIC1-1: It's
• 4:33
  Speaker 10: the joy of what we're doing.
• 4:35
  MIC1-1: And the so for instance, we have an event coming up, it's on August 28th.
• 4:39
  MIC1-1: This is a bit of a plug, it's a bit of an advertisement, but not really.
• 4:42
  MIC1-1: I really wanna talk about this in general, but on August 28th, we have, uh, our annual- Mm-hmm Big Night dinner.
• 4:49
  MIC1-1: Something we've been doing
• 4:49
  Speaker 10: for
• 4:50
  MIC1-1: time.
• 4:50
  MIC1-1: It's been about 20 years, Mark.
• 4:51
  MIC1-1: The movie came out
• 4:51
  MIC2: came
• 4:52
  MIC1-1: So here's the thing about Big Night.
• 4:54
  MIC1-1: Why do we do a Big Night dinner?
• 4:55
  MIC1-1: And why were we one of the
• 4:56
  Speaker 8: first?
• 4:57
  Speaker 8: Uh, there are a number of people who do it now,
• 4:59
  MIC1-1: Big Night is Mark and my
• 5:00
  Speaker 8: favorite
• 5:02
  MIC2: Period period.
• 5:04
  MIC2: Period.
• 5:04
  Speaker 8: it's centered around a big feast, do a private screening in the, right- Mm-hmm in their screening room
• 5:11
  MIC1-1: the, street, wine, then we come back to the restaurant.
• 5:16
  MIC1-1: And Big Night, if you haven't seen it, you have to see it.
• 5:17
  MIC1-1: It's a, it's, it's Isabella Rossellini, and Minnie Driver, and Stanley Tucci, and who else?
• 5:23
  MIC1-1: Tony Shalhoub.
• 5:24
  MIC1-1: And just a g- a great cast of characters, a great, film, but it's centered around a big feast with a very special timpano in the center of it.
• 5:31
  MIC1-1: We then cook that big feast and sit at communal tables and kinda live that movie.
• 5:36
  MIC1-1: That's become an annual thing.
• 5:38
  MIC1-1: That didn't come out of the marketing department.
• 5:39
  MIC1-1: They came out Mark and I wanted to do it.
• 5:42
  MIC1-1: This is And I own a restaurant, so I things.
• 5:45
  MIC1-1: Yeah, and friends.
• 5:47
  MIC1-1: And we, and charge them money, you know?
• 5:49
  MIC1-1: pay for it.
• 5:49
  MIC1-1: It's, uh, it's awesome.
• 5:50
  MIC1-1: Um, so Big Night is coming up on August 28th.
• 5:53
  MIC1-1: But the- And the
• 5:54
  Speaker 10: a, there's this really big feast.
• 5:55
  Speaker 10: It's the center of
• 5:56
  MIC1-1: the movie- Yeah
• 5:58
  MIC2: to the giant feast.
• 5:59
  MIC2: And to share that giant feast with everybody
• 6:02
  Speaker 10: the movie,
• 6:03
  MIC2: it just...
• 6:04
  MIC2: You, you can feel it.
• 6:05
  MIC2: There's a vibe in the room when you
• 6:07
  Speaker 10: the whole pig
• 6:08
  MIC1-1: out, right?
• 6:08
  MIC1-1: And there's e- and- There's, there's just it.
• 6:10
  MIC1-1: And there's 80 or 100 people, most of whom have come in years prior.
• 6:14
  MIC1-1: Mm.
• 6:14
  MIC1-1: But some of them who never saw the movie before, and they're so excited about it.
• 6:17
  MIC1-1: It's great.
• 6:18
  MIC1-1: So the other event that we have coming up that brings me to reminisce about the first few times we've done it.
• 6:22
  MIC1-1: This is a big operation.
• 6:23
  MIC1-1: We don't do it every year.
• 6:24
  MIC1-1: But, so in the'90s, farm to table was the way that we talked
• 6:30
  Speaker 8: about- Mm-hmm it was a new concept,
• 6:31
  MIC1-1: right?
• 6:31
  MIC1-1: Like, that you would deal with local farms, and that's gone through a bunch of iterations over the years.
• 6:35
  MIC1-1: But in the late'90s We came up with the idea, and I, and we were to do this Absolutely We did a table to farm dinner, and there were other restaurants that did this, where we brought the restaurant's tables to the farm, to our local farm, Baker Farms in East Brunswick, and we planned this whole thing.
• 6:55
  MIC1-1: The first one was an unmitigated
• 6:57
  MIC2: Oh
• 6:57
  Speaker 10: it
• 6:57
  MIC1-1: Oh, it was the worst of the worst Unmitigated disaster.
• 7:00
  MIC1-1: So we didn't know what the hell we were doing.
• 7:02
  MIC1-1: Well, and rain.
• 7:02
  MIC1-1: So w- And rain.
• 7:03
  MIC1-1: Let's not leave out the rain So we go out to the farm, and we didn't have any money, right?
• 7:07
  MIC1-1: So we're a young restaurant.
• 7:08
  MIC1-1: We actually brought the tables from the restaurant to the farm.
• 7:11
  MIC1-1: Mm-hmm.
• 7:11
  MIC1-1: We brought the grill from the kitchen to the farm.
• 7:15
  MIC1-1: We di-'cause it's a wood-burning grill.
• 7:16
  MIC1-1: We disassembled
• 7:17
  Speaker 8: things and brought them to then
• 7:20
  MIC1-1: we made it weather-dependent, but the night before they said it was gonna be no rain.
• 7:23
  MIC1-1: Mm.
• 7:23
  MIC1-1: Everything was gonna be great.
• 7:25
  MIC1-1: We had the whole staff at this farm setting up until, what time in the morning?
• 7:29
  MIC1-1: 1:00, 2:00 in the morning?
• 7:31
  MIC1-1: The wee hours of the morning.
• 7:31
  MIC1-1: We'll, we'll go with the wee hours.
• 7:32
  MIC1-1: Everything looks great.
• 7:33
  MIC1-1: Weather report looks great.
• 7:34
  MIC1-1: I go home, like I'm gonna grab
• 7:36
  Speaker 8: four hours sleep.
• 7:36
  Speaker 8: I'll get up."
• 7:37
  MIC1-1: and I open
• 7:38
  Speaker 8: my eyes,
• 7:41
  MIC2: out.
• 7:41
  MIC2: Oh, terrible
• 7:42
  Speaker 8: I call Mark.
• 7:43
  Speaker 8: I'm like, we've taken all the equipment out of the restaurant.
• 7:47
  MIC1-1: we, can't
• 7:49
  MIC2: Brutal.
• 7:49
  MIC2: But
• 7:49
  Speaker 8: had the bright idea, hired a
• 7:51
  MIC2: publicist- Oh we
• 7:53
  Speaker 8: people
• 7:53
  MIC1-1: from People Magazine, which was just start- Time Magazine Time Magazine- and so on People Magazine, The New York Times.
• 7:58
  MIC1-1: We, and we had all these reporters that we had sent a car to Manhattan to bring, to Manhattan.
• 8:06
  MIC1-1: And worse than if it were just gonna be a downpour, they're like- Mm"Ah, maybe it'll rain.
• 8:10
  Speaker 8: Maybe it won't.
• 8:10
  Speaker 8: Maybe a light rain.
• 8:11
  Speaker 8: Maybe now, maybe later." And we
• 8:13
  MIC1-1: were d- we didn't know what to do, and then at the last minute we decided leave the Bloody
• 8:18
  Speaker 8: bar and the in the restaurant.
• 8:21
  Speaker 8: We would then use all of our employees to move all the back into the restaurant, back into the restaurant, set up the dining.
• 8:29
  Speaker 8: It was not
• 8:31
  MIC1-1: awesome.
• 8:32
  MIC1-1: It w- I would-
• 8:32
  MIC2: I, I- We had a great time I will t- it was a lot of fun, and that was the idea of it, right?
• 8:37
  MIC2: uh, while we're having the cocktail hour, there's just a little misting.
• 8:40
  MIC2: You know that kind of rain where you're not really getting wet, but it's sticking to your face a little bit and it's making everything soggy.
• 8:49
  MIC2: So sport, except for the members of the press who didn't
• 8:52
  Speaker 8: about us at all.
• 8:53
  Speaker 8: But
• 8:53
  MIC1-1: Th- they didn't But then we did it again, and we did it at Dreier Farms, and we had the insight to make sure that we had a place with a roof over our heads.
• 9:02
  MIC1-1: I don't
• 9:02
  Speaker 10: if you remember.
• 9:03
  Speaker 10: torrential downpours
• 9:05
  MIC1-1: that day.
• 9:05
  MIC1-1: Yeah.
• 9:05
  MIC1-1: And we thought,"Ha ha ha.
• 9:07
  MIC1-1: We're okay." We were ready.
• 9:08
  MIC1-1: "We're ready for you." So Dreier's one- Dreier's Farm
• 9:10
  Speaker 10: Dryer Farms in Cranford, cleared out one of their hooped areas and things normally, and they moved them all out for us,
• 9:20
  MIC2: up a
• 9:21
  Speaker 10: long 80 of us.
• 9:23
  MIC2: That was great.
• 9:23
  MIC2: And it was absolutely wonderful.
• 9:25
  MIC2: Now, the plan o- of course, had been to be out in the farm, which we couldn't do, and hopefully we'll be able to do this year.
• 9:31
  MIC2: But we have a backup plan.
• 9:33
  MIC2: We're ready.
• 9:34
  MIC2: So we'll be under the hoop if we need to be under the hoop, and we'll be at Dryer Farms, and we're gonna feature all kinds of New Jersey, produce and We're gonna do some lamb from a local New Jersey farm.
• 9:45
  MIC2: Uh, I'm super excited to,
• 9:46
  MIC1-1: be a great time.
• 9:47
  MIC1-1: That is September the 13th.
• 9:49
  MIC1-1: Uh, so if you'd like
• 9:50
  MIC2: a Sunday afternoon
• 9:51
  MIC1-1: a Sunday afternoon if you'd like to come to the Table of Farm Dinner at Stage Left and Cafe Lombardi,
• 9:55
  MIC2: gonna be wonderful
• 9:56
  MIC1-1: go to stagelift.com/events to find out about our stuff.
• 9:58
  MIC1-1: That's the cool things that we're doing.
• 10:00
  MIC1-1: We'll be back in just a moment with, Vincenzo from Vincenzo's Plate, the most popular Italian cooking channel in the English-speaking world.
• 10:08
  MIC1-1: Stick with us.
• 10:09
  Speaker 11: Hey there, everybody.
• 10:10
  Speaker 11: Welcome back.
• 10:11
  Speaker 11: Our guest today is Vincenzo Prosperi.
• 10:14
  Speaker 11: He has made it his mission to teach the world authentic Italian cooking and to call out crimes against carbonara wherever they occur.
• 10:21
  Speaker 11: Born in Pescara in Abruzzo and now based in Australia, he's created one of the world's largest English language channels devoted to authentic Italian food.
• 10:30
  Speaker 11: Last year alone, Vincenzo garnered more than 574 million views across platforms.
• 10:36
  Speaker 11: Along the way, he's become a teacher, an entertainer, a passionate defender of authenticity.
• 10:40
  Speaker 11: Vincenzo's plate on YouTube is informative, authentic, and addicting.
• 10:44
  Speaker 11: I'm a total fanboy, and I've spent more hours watching his videos than I care to admit.
• 10:50
  Speaker 12: Vincenzo, welcome to the show.
• 10:52
  Speaker 12: I am so grateful to have you on the show right now, but not for the normal reasons I'm grateful because Francis will finally shut up about getting you on the show.
• 11:02
  Speaker 12: So it's, it's actually happening.
• 11:05
  Speaker 12: He can, he'll leave me alone.
• 11:06
  Speaker 12: You're here now.
• 11:07
  Speaker 12: We're doing a show.
• 11:09
  Speaker 12: Welcome.
• 11:10
  Speaker 13: Thank you for having me.
• 11:11
  Speaker 13: Thank you so much.
• 11:11
  Speaker 13: So- Thank you so much,
• 11:12
  Speaker 11: guys so if you don't know Vincenzo's channel on YouTube, I, I recommend it highly.
• 11:16
  Speaker 11: I Make Dishes, that you talk about on, and you visit chefs, and you started out reacting to famous chefs talking about things.
• 11:23
  Speaker 11: Let people know what Vincenzo's Plate is.
• 11:27
  Speaker 11: You're in Australia.
• 11:27
  Speaker 11: You're an Italian immigrant to Australia.
• 11:30
  Speaker 11: You know, we're used to Italian immigrants to America.
• 11:32
  Speaker 11: Talk to us a little bit about- Yeah,
• 11:33
  Speaker 12: we didn't know they went to Australia yeah.
• 11:35
  Speaker 11: Tell us a little
• 11:36
  Speaker 13: Yes, not many, but there are.
• 11:38
  Speaker 13: Not as many as America.
• 11:39
  Speaker 11: Mo- most of the Irish that are in Australia got sent there as criminals.
• 11:42
  Speaker 11: The Italian went as free people to, to Australia.
• 11:45
  Speaker 11: So, so tell us about your journey and how we, how we wind up with one of the largest Italian cooking shows in the English-speaking world coming out of Australia.
• 11:53
  Speaker 13: It's interesting, right?
• 11:54
  Speaker 13: I mean, how far do you want me, how far back do you want me to go?
• 11:57
  Speaker 11: Well-
• 11:58
  Speaker 13: From-
• 11:58
  Speaker 12: You, you go as far as you want- Yeah and then we'll just edit out the crap.
• 12:01
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 12:02
  Speaker 13: The thing is, again, we talk about reactions and we talk about, you know, trying to keep traditions alive.
• 12:07
  Speaker 13: I grew up, so my parents, when I was born, they had a little grocery store, like a little delicatessen.
• 12:13
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 12:13
  Speaker 13: You know?
• 12:14
  Speaker 13: Those ones you still have also in, uh, Italian neighborhoods in, uh, USA.
• 12:19
  Speaker 13: And so I spent lots of time with my grandparents.
• 12:22
  Speaker 13: I was raised by my grandmother, and at the time, her parents lived with her.
• 12:28
  Speaker 13: That's what they do in Italy.
• 12:29
  Speaker 13: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:29
  Speaker 13: You know?
• 12:30
  Speaker 13: Older people, they don't go to nursing homes, UK.
• 12:33
  Speaker 13: So I was lucky to grow up with my great-grandparents and grandparents.
• 12:37
  Speaker 13: Wow.
• 12:38
  Speaker 13: So listening to the story, you know, from the early 1900, you know, World War, World War II, and every day there was a new story.
• 12:46
  Speaker 13: And food was the most important thing for these people, you know?
• 12:49
  Speaker 13: That's what made me.
• 12:51
  Speaker 13: So for me, the heritage, uh, the food...
• 12:54
  Speaker 13: Now, when I say the heritage, I'm a citizen of the world, but when we talk about Italian food, for me, Italian food has to be traditional.
• 13:02
  Speaker 13: Reason why is because we have so many regions, and every region has a story to tell.
• 13:07
  Speaker 13: Every re- every region is different to the other.
• 13:09
  Speaker 13: Sicilians are Sicilians.
• 13:11
  Speaker 13: Uh, Neapolitans are Neapolitans.
• 13:13
  Speaker 13: People from Milan are f- people from Milan.
• 13:15
  Speaker 13: Their food is completely different.
• 13:17
  Speaker 13: It's like going to a different country.
• 13:19
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 13:19
  Speaker 13: So-
• 13:20
  Speaker 12: You know, here, here in the US, we try and ex- Francis and I try and explain that all the time.
• 13:24
  Speaker 12: There are 23 distinct regions of Italy that all have different food, and then interregions of those regions.
• 13:30
  Speaker 12: I- in the United States, so many people just think of Italian food as, you know, they see red sauce and they think,"Okay, this is Italian food." That's just one little piece of the culture
• 13:42
  Speaker 13: That's right.
• 13:43
  Speaker 13: I hear people saying,"Oh, yeah, garlic." We don't use garlic all the time.
• 13:46
  Speaker 13: Or I hear people saying,"You guys, all you do is pasta and pizza." Well, that's not the, the, that's not.
• 13:53
  Speaker 12: But we do do it very
• 13:54
  Speaker 13: well-
• 13:54
  Speaker 12: And so- to be fair.
• 13:55
  Speaker 13: Yeah, but look, there is, there is bad restaurants and good restaurants everywhere.
• 13:59
  Speaker 13: There is people that do bad things in Italy, too.
• 14:01
  Speaker 13: There are restaurants today, touristy restaurants, they are awful.
• 14:04
  Speaker 13: They're really bad.
• 14:06
  Speaker 13: But there are some who needs to be respected and supported, uh, especially the little small businesses, you know, where you have chefs that they don't care about cameras, they don't wanna be seen.
• 14:17
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm, yeah.
• 14:17
  Speaker 13: And they work so hard.
• 14:19
  Speaker 13: You know, I've seen the chefs, they work so hard, and to try and promote local cuisines, you know?
• 14:25
  Speaker 13: Anyway, that's a different story.
• 14:26
  Speaker 13: But basically, uh, I traveled the world since I was, started traveling since I was 17, and I've seen this gap between authentic Italian cuisine and the cuisine, the Italian cuisine served around the world And so we started this channel.
• 14:43
  Speaker 13: It was my wife idea.
• 14:44
  Speaker 13: So I moved to Australia.
• 14:46
  Speaker 13: I...
• 14:47
  Speaker 13: Funny, because I was out of the f- food industry.
• 14:50
  Speaker 13: I was into fashion.
• 14:52
  Speaker 13: Um, because as you know, the restaurant industry is, it's hard.
• 14:56
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 14:57
  Speaker 13: It's not for everyone.
• 14:58
  Speaker 13: You know, passion and experience is not enough.
• 15:00
  Speaker 13: You need more than that.
• 15:00
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 15:01
  Speaker 13: And my wife said to me,"You love food so much.
• 15:04
  Speaker 13: You, you're good at what you do.
• 15:06
  Speaker 13: Why don't you start a channel so you can share your passion and your story with the world?" And that's what we did.
• 15:14
  Speaker 13: And, um, like you said, and yeah, and USA now is one of the biggest, um, followers I will say, you know, supporters.
• 15:21
  Speaker 13: And, uh, you know, Americans are amazing because if you tell an American that this is wrong, they're willing to change.
• 15:27
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 15:28
  Speaker 13: Some people, like for example Italians, they're hard to change, right?
• 15:31
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 11: Yeah,
• 15:32
  Speaker 13: yeah.
• 15:32
  Speaker 13: Doesn't mean you have to change li- your life completely, but if you can try something new, why not?
• 15:38
  Speaker 11: I think there are a few things that are interesting.
• 15:39
  Speaker 11: In America, where the Italian immigration goes back, you know, 150 years and beyond, um, we call our restaurant an Italian-American restaurant.
• 15:47
  Speaker 11: So we base it on Mark's grandmother's cuisine.
• 15:50
  Speaker 11: Mark's grandmother was born in the United States and cooked in Brooklyn for 40 years.
• 15:53
  Speaker 12: Yeah, my, my great-grandparents came over in the 1880s.
• 15:57
  Speaker 12: I mean, that's a long time they've been here.
• 15:58
  Speaker 12: Yeah, wow.
• 15:58
  Speaker 11: So, so I think that what has developed in America is there's an I- kind of an Italian-American hybrid cuisine, but that also can be done well or done poorly.
• 16:08
  Speaker 11: Um, but, but I think one of the reasons that I'm really drawn to you is, um, is th- always a quest for authenticity and honesty.
• 16:19
  Speaker 11: And one of the things, and I'm gonna throw this back to you as a question, o- one of the reasons I think that Italian cuisine is so often done poorly in so many places, as opposed to French cuisine or German cuisine, is that even mediocre Italian cuisine is pretty fricking good, right?
• 16:38
  Speaker 11: Tastes good.
• 16:38
  Speaker 11: It tastes good, you know what I mean?
• 16:39
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 16:39
  Speaker 11: Whereas if you screw up French cuisine, that souffle is garbage thrown away.
• 16:43
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 16:43
  Speaker 11: Your sauce
• 16:43
  Speaker 12: broke,
• 16:44
  Speaker 11: you're a mess.
• 16:44
  Speaker 11: Oh, yes.
• 16:44
  Speaker 11: Yes.
• 16:45
  Speaker 11: I think then people get complacent and have, like, rubbery pizza or, or, you know, over-garlicked stuff.
• 16:50
  Speaker 11: Um, talk to us about coming into Australia and what you found as an immigrant in Australia, and what made you decide you wanted to defend the authenticity of, of cuisine?
• 17:00
  Speaker 13: See, I came to Australia in 2007, and I remember carbonara with cream was on everywhere, on every menu.
• 17:07
  Speaker 13: Uh, you know, there was, um, restaurants serving, um- I would, I w- I wanna, wanna say American food because, you know, America, basically whatever you start becomes popular around the world, you know?
• 17:19
  Speaker 13: You have the power.
• 17:20
  Speaker 13: And so when I would say they had the American influence Italian, it doesn't mean it was done like your grandmother did, Mark.
• 17:27
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 17:27
  Speaker 13: You know what I mean?
• 17:28
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 17:28
  Speaker 13: And so I saw the change.
• 17:30
  Speaker 13: We had...
• 17:31
  Speaker 13: I- when I came in 2007, 20 years ago, there were lots of restaurants that were not doing authentic Italians.
• 17:37
  Speaker 13: But as of today, if you go to Sydney, you can find incredible Italian restaurants, especially small ones, which is the one I like to support.
• 17:46
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 17:46
  Speaker 13: You know, small family businesses.
• 17:48
  Speaker 13: I don't like to support big franchises.
• 17:50
  Speaker 13: Sure.
• 17:50
  Speaker 13: Sorry, that's just me.
• 17:50
  Speaker 13: That's not just you.
• 17:52
  Speaker 13: Um, u- That's us,
• 17:53
  Speaker 11: too.
• 17:53
  Speaker 13: No, I, I prefer to support work- very hardworking families, you know, they try, you know,'cause the restaurant industry, as we know, is very t- very difficult.
• 18:01
  Speaker 13: Oh,
• 18:01
  Speaker 11: we know.
• 18:02
  Speaker 13: And so we have to support the right people.
• 18:04
  Speaker 13: And basic- you know, you do it every day.
• 18:06
  Speaker 13: And basically, I can tell you today that Sydney in Australia or Melbourne makes some of the best Italian food I've eaten around the world, you know?
• 18:15
  Speaker 11: Well, I'm gonna say that I believe that your channel, and there's another channel that I really love, the guys from Pasta Grammar I think ma- make a huge difference.
• 18:21
  Speaker 11: Amazing, yes.
• 18:22
  Speaker 11: Amazing, amazing channel.
• 18:23
  Speaker 11: Yes.
• 18:23
  Speaker 13: Ah, Paolo and Eva, yes.
• 18:24
  Speaker 11: But I think that With the advent of YouTube, people are more likely to, um, fix their own washing machine and dryer if it should break, because you can, you can watch and figure it out.
• 18:38
  Speaker 11: Uh, but I also think that with YouTube as a, as a huge powerful way to disseminate the truth, and I think a l- it's due to channels like yours that people can see it.
• 18:49
  Speaker 11: And what I like is you have the debate.
• 18:51
  Speaker 11: L- let's, let's talk about how you started.
• 18:52
  Speaker 11: I first started following you when I'm seeing this Italian guy on YouTube, and he's watching British chefs destroy Italian food, right?
• 19:00
  Speaker 11: Like, so Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay.
• 19:03
  Speaker 11: And, and it was, like, the same time as Uncle Roger came out watching the British chefs destroy Asian food.
• 19:08
  Speaker 11: And, um, you know, to watch you, the cringe in your face as they put the cream in the carbonara.
• 19:13
  Speaker 12: Oh, I watched you tear up Marco Pierre White- and his bolognese.
• 19:16
  Speaker 12: It was- And I, and I thought- Oh and I thought,"Somebody should tear up Marco Pierre White.
• 19:20
  Speaker 12: He deserves it."
• 19:21
  Speaker 11: But it was funny.
• 19:22
  Speaker 11: I mean,
• 19:23
  Speaker 13: he used the Knorr, um, cube-
• 19:25
  Speaker 11: Yeah stock ones to make- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:27
  Speaker 11: The, the bouillon cube what did he make?
• 19:28
  Speaker 11: Uh- The bouillon cube.
• 19:28
  Speaker 13: Uh, yeah, y- he made, um, a bolognese, I think, where- Yeah, I think he was making the bolognese
• 19:33
  Speaker 12: he,
• 19:33
  Speaker 11: he.
• 19:33
  Speaker 11: But to watch you say,"Oh, no." So it was funny.
• 19:38
  Speaker 11: It was enga- y- and the thing about it is when you point out the things that they're doing wrong, you're not attacking them personally.
• 19:44
  Speaker 11: You're, it- No generously looking at these guys who are trying and saying,"Don't do that," you know?
• 19:49
  Speaker 11: But it also speaks to a lot of us, and to a lot of Americans who are like,"Oh, I shouldn't put cream in my, in my carbonara?"
• 19:57
  Speaker 12: I, I, I actually very much enjoyed y- w- you were doing the Ina Garten, uh, car- Well, she,
• 21:28
  Speaker 13: she's wonderful.
• 21:28
  Speaker 12: Let's not say anything bad about her, please carbonara.
• 21:30
  Speaker 12: She's doing the carbonara, and you're like,"And look at this wonderful, wonderful lady.
• 21:34
  Speaker 12: She's ruining the carbonara.""That's such a nice lady." She is
• 21:39
  Speaker 13: so beautiful.
• 21:40
  Speaker 13: I lo- I, I wanna cook with her one day.
• 21:42
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 21:42
  Speaker 13: She's so beautiful.
• 21:43
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 21:43
  Speaker 13: She used 24 cloves of garlic- Yes to make arrabiata sauce.
• 21:48
  Speaker 11: Well, there were vampires
• 21:49
  Speaker 12: in the
• 21:50
  Speaker 11: neighborhood,
• 21:50
  Speaker 12: and they- Well, I, I was thinking maybe- Yes, yes maybe she was cooking for 200 people.
• 21:53
  Speaker 12: Yeah, exactly.
• 21:54
  Speaker 12: That's, you know.
• 21:54
  Speaker 13: Maybe she was.
• 21:55
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 21:57
  Speaker 13: Uh, but it's a good topic where you just, y- you know.
• 21:59
  Speaker 13: This is interesting what's happening worldwide.
• 22:02
  Speaker 13: Allow me to say this, because I've been online since 24, 2013.
• 22:07
  Speaker 13: Mm.
• 22:07
  Speaker 13: Like you guys have been doing this for a long time, okay?
• 22:10
  Speaker 13: So things have changed a lot online and content Talking about Uncle Roger, he's a wonderful man.
• 22:17
  Speaker 13: He's a comedian.
• 22:18
  Speaker 13: He's funny.
• 22:19
  Speaker 13: He's more funny- Mm-hmm off camera than on camera.
• 22:22
  Speaker 13: He's really a nice, genuine- I believe
• 22:23
  Speaker 11: that
• 22:24
  Speaker 13: g- fella.
• 22:25
  Speaker 13: But his show, we started at the same time, pretty much the same week.
• 22:28
  Speaker 13: I don't know how it started.
• 22:30
  Speaker 13: Uh, we had the same idea with the reactions.
• 22:33
  Speaker 13: He does more comedy in a way, like, he doesn't go into details- Mm because he doesn't have that food background.
• 22:39
  Speaker 13: Right.
• 22:40
  Speaker 11: Fuiyo.
• 22:40
  Speaker 13: Um, w- the reason, the reason why I did...
• 22:42
  Speaker 13: And, and it's amazing.
• 22:43
  Speaker 13: I mean, I watch all his videos.
• 22:44
  Speaker 13: It's incredible.
• 22:44
  Speaker 13: What I try to do instead, like you said, I don't want to attack the chef.
• 22:49
  Speaker 13: I don't know Marco Pierre White.
• 22:51
  Speaker 13: Mm.
• 22:51
  Speaker 13: I don't, I don't know.
• 22:52
  Speaker 13: I don't know you guys personally, so if you put 24 cloves of garlic in a dish, I'm not talking about you personally,'cause I don't know who you are.
• 23:00
  Speaker 11: You hope for our salvation.
• 23:01
  Speaker 13: You know?
• 23:01
  Speaker 13: Like, we're not friends.
• 23:03
  Speaker 13: I'm talking about the recipe, the dish.
• 23:04
  Speaker 13: And if you are a big person like Marco Pierre White, who I'm following- I'm a big person.
• 23:09
  Speaker 12: What are you trying to say?
• 23:10
  Speaker 13: You know?
• 23:12
  Speaker 13: Me too, I'm big.
• 23:13
  Speaker 13: But if you're a big personality and you have all these followers, try to share the right information.
• 23:19
  Speaker 13: What's happening today, unfortunately, is that everybody wants to be seen.
• 23:23
  Speaker 13: Everybody wants to be famous, and we're trying to do things that make us go viral.
• 23:28
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 23:29
  Speaker 13: Viral, getting the views is the priority for people.
• 23:34
  Speaker 13: I remember doing an event with lots of creators, and I asked those young creators, well, young, younger than me, and I said,"What you, w- why are you doing this?" You know?
• 23:43
  Speaker 13: "Oh, to become famous." Mm.
• 23:44
  Speaker 13: Or to be seen.
• 23:45
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 23:45
  Speaker 13: And I say,"Okay.
• 23:46
  Speaker 13: Well, what's the, what's your purpose?
• 23:49
  Speaker 13: What is your purpose?" You need to have a purpose in life.
• 23:53
  Speaker 13: My purpose is to protect Italian cuisine.
• 23:57
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 23:57
  Speaker 13: In a...
• 23:57
  Speaker 13: When I say protect, my wife sounds like big, but you know, like, this is what my purpose is You guys have your pur- if you don't have your purpose, why are you doing videos?
• 24:08
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 24:08
  Speaker 11: Well, do, I- You know?
• 24:09
  Speaker 13: I think that's the first thing you need
• 24:10
  Speaker 11: to remember yeah, it's more hollow if you're just doing videos for the sake of doing videos.
• 24:13
  Speaker 11: But when you say you're protecting Italian cuisine, there's a danger of those things getting lost, and when they get lost and go away, and w- people don't know the difference anymore between where things came from and whatever schlock is being put out-
• 24:29
  Speaker 12: I, I, I think the biggest danger is putting peas in the carbonara.
• 24:32
  Speaker 12: That's, I, I, that's, I think that's the biggest danger that, that, that we all face- That's right as, as mankind faces.
• 24:38
  Speaker 11: That's, that's, that's a t- uniquely Italian perspective.
• 24:40
  Speaker 11: And cream fresh.
• 24:41
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 24:41
  Speaker 13: And cream fresh.
• 24:42
  Speaker 11: And cream fresh.
• 24:42
  Speaker 11: Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 24:42
  Speaker 11: Cream fresh.
• 24:44
  Speaker 13: My
• 24:44
  Speaker 11: God.
• 24:44
  Speaker 11: Well, so, all right.
• 24:45
  Speaker 11: So we go from an early stage where you're doing mostly reaction videos.
• 24:48
  Speaker 11: That's not a big part of what you do anymore.
• 24:50
  Speaker 11: Um, but what I then began to see, and'cause I'm, and can tell I followed your career for a while, is the guys who you, some of the guys who you kind of were like,"Oh, no, don't do that," then they c- collaborated with you.
• 25:03
  Speaker 11: And so, you know, you've had chef, chefs that you've produced videos together with who- It- who challenge you, and it's a good-natured ribbing and, and some good stuff comes out of it.
• 25:12
  Speaker 13: It is.
• 25:13
  Speaker 13: It i- the food, food should bring people together, not separate.
• 25:16
  Speaker 13: Mm.
• 25:16
  Speaker 11: Who's your favorite- Food
• 25:17
  Speaker 13: has to bring us together
• 25:18
  Speaker 11: who's your favorite guy that you started out mocking who you, you wound up then collaborating with or endorsing?
• 25:24
  Speaker 13: Well, my favorite guy, I wanna say, I know it sounds weird, but for me, Jamie Oliver was always an inspiration.
• 25:28
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 25:28
  Speaker 11: Yep.
• 25:29
  Speaker 13: I wish I can collaborate with him.
• 25:31
  Speaker 13: Jamie Oliver, his career is incredible, what he did, how he started.
• 25:35
  Speaker 13: I was working in a restaurant in, um, Putney Bridge, not far from Kensington, where he was in London.
• 25:41
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 25:41
  Speaker 13: Um, and so I remember him starting.
• 25:44
  Speaker 13: For me, he's always been an inspiration.
• 25:45
  Speaker 13: It would be a dream for me to, to meet him in person because he, he, you know, he's a great guy.
• 25:51
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 25:53
  Speaker 13: But, um, I did a collaboration with James, a fellow American, uh, chef who now lives in Barcelona.
• 25:59
  Speaker 13: He does reaction videos.
• 26:01
  Speaker 13: He's, he's, he's trained in French cuisines.
• 26:05
  Speaker 13: And for me, working with him and collaborating with him is fun.
• 26:08
  Speaker 13: Pasta Grandma, we share the same passion with Pasta Grandma.
• 26:12
  Speaker 13: You know Eva and Harper.
• 26:13
  Speaker 13: Yes.
• 26:13
  Speaker 13: And for me, they are wonderful guys.
• 26:16
  Speaker 13: Wonderful.
• 26:16
  Speaker 13: Um, forget about what they do for a living.
• 26:19
  Speaker 13: As people, they are beautiful.
• 26:21
  Speaker 13: And for me, being connected with humble, honest people is the most important thing, you know?
• 26:26
  Speaker 13: He,
• 26:26
  Speaker 12: he said humble.
• 26:27
  Speaker 12: We're out.
• 26:28
  Speaker 11: I was gonna say, I guess- Sorry.
• 26:29
  Speaker 11: I guess we, I guess we didn't make
• 26:30
  Speaker 12: the- We're honest.
• 26:31
  Speaker 12: I'll give you honest.
• 26:32
  Speaker 12: We didn't make the list.
• 26:33
  Speaker 12: I don't know.
• 26:33
  Speaker 12: Humble's not gonna- We didn't make the list there humble's not gonna fly around here.
• 26:36
  Speaker 13: Be proud of what you do.
• 26:37
  Speaker 13: But at the same time, you know, eh, people feet on the ground, you know?
• 26:39
  Speaker 13: It's important.
• 26:40
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 26:40
  Speaker 12: Absolutely.
• 26:41
  Speaker 11: So, so what you're doing now, though, is I've, I've seen your videos where you're going to chefs and, and talking about how chefs do things right, and bringing an authentic way of cooking Italian food to people.
• 26:53
  Speaker 11: What, what's the purpose of your channel and your message now?
• 26:57
  Speaker 11: Because I think it's, it's moved away from correcting the- It's a- obviously wrong, almost laughable mistakes that people were making, to it's a more subtle thing now.
• 27:07
  Speaker 13: Thank you, you know, for noticing that.
• 27:08
  Speaker 13: Basically, the reaction videos were getting too much hate.
• 27:11
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 27:12
  Speaker 13: Hmm.
• 27:12
  Speaker 13: People that didn't get the message of what I was doing.
• 27:14
  Speaker 13: Right.
• 27:14
  Speaker 13: And, you know, I, I am a father.
• 27:16
  Speaker 13: I have a family, and I don't wanna spread negativity.
• 27:19
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 27:19
  Speaker 13: I want people to say,"Okay, I'm learning from you." And, and so, plus everybody's doing reaction now.
• 27:25
  Speaker 13: It's becoming saturated.
• 27:26
  Speaker 13: And I said, you know, I need to do something different.
• 27:29
  Speaker 13: So I did the ranking, starting to do now ranking videos to help people how to buy Italian products.
• 27:34
  Speaker 13: I
• 27:34
  Speaker 12: have to tell you, I, I'm just, sorry to interrupt you, but I love them.
• 27:38
  Speaker 12: And I love them from the...
• 27:39
  Speaker 12: Now, we can't get all those products.
• 27:41
  Speaker 12: Some of the products are not available in the United States.
• 27:43
  Speaker 12: But what a wonderful thing to say,"Hey, I've tried all these products.
• 27:46
  Speaker 12: I've tried all these products in, in different ways, and this is what I find to be the best.
• 27:52
  Speaker 12: And p- and this is what I find to be good, and this is what I find to be acceptable, and this is what I find to be not acceptable i- in any way." And I think those little ranking videos are wonderful.
• 28:02
  Speaker 12: I think people really appreciate them.
• 28:04
  Speaker 12: Thank
• 28:04
  Speaker 13: you.
• 28:04
  Speaker 13: Thank you.
• 28:04
  Speaker 13: And to be honest, it's be- the, the feedback has been incredible.
• 28:08
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 28:08
  Speaker 13: No more negative comments.
• 28:10
  Speaker 13: People appreciate.
• 28:11
  Speaker 13: We get hundreds if not thousands of comments and private messages and emails a day, people asking about the products.
• 28:18
  Speaker 13: And to me, it's ama- I don't get paid by any brands.
• 28:20
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 28:21
  Speaker 13: And I don't want to be paid because this is different.
• 28:24
  Speaker 13: Comes from me.
• 28:24
  Speaker 12: Yeah, yeah.
• 28:25
  Speaker 13: That's what, that's what I can do, you know?
• 28:27
  Speaker 12: You really can't be on our show if you don't wanna be
• 28:29
  Speaker 13: paid.
• 28:30
  Speaker 13: That's- If, if they pay, of course I don't say no, but you know what I mean?
• 28:33
  Speaker 13: Like- Right.
• 28:33
  Speaker 12: But it's not, you're not looking for the sponsorship.
• 28:34
  Speaker 13: By the way, the restaurant guys are not paying me.
• 28:39
  Speaker 13: No, you know, it's, I come from my, I come from my heart, and at the moment I'm collaborating with different chefs in Italy.
• 28:45
  Speaker 13: Um, chefs who work very hard, chefs who are not seen.
• 28:50
  Speaker 13: You know, chefs, they are doing, promoting, uh, local cuisines.
• 28:54
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 28:54
  Speaker 13: From Tuscany, from, um, from Bologna, from Abruzzo where I'm from, from Rome.
• 28:59
  Speaker 13: And so I gave these chefs the opportunity to be seen.
• 29:02
  Speaker 13: I wanna give my audience to them so they can talk about their, the food, the dish that they grew up eating, the dish from their family and their restaurant.
• 29:11
  Speaker 13: And I'm, I'm not, not asking for them to pay me.
• 29:14
  Speaker 13: I'm actually paying for the production and to go there because I want to give the audience to them.
• 29:21
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 29:22
  Speaker 13: So that's the switch we're doing at the moment.
• 29:24
  Speaker 13: And, uh, and for me is, uh, some of the best thing I've done with the channel because- Yes, I've got me, I've got my family, I have guests, and now we have the chefs in Italy doing these videos.
• 29:37
  Speaker 11: So do you bring folks to Italy?
• 29:39
  Speaker 11: You bringing people on a tour?
• 29:41
  Speaker 13: We do tours in Abruzzo, and we, again, we have lots of Americans coming, and, um, Canadians, Australians, people from all over the world, a majority Americans.
• 29:49
  Speaker 13: Can I- And it's the best thing I do.
• 29:50
  Speaker 13: I love it.
• 29:51
  Speaker 11: Can I tell you one of the things that, that I know that we have in common after doing this for 20 years and after running our restaurants for 34 and 20 years in the same spot, my past is still with me.
• 30:01
  Speaker 11: You know?
• 30:01
  Speaker 11: Anybody that I threw out of here 20 years ago, if they're still alive, you know, they, they know that I threw them out of here.
• 30:06
  Speaker 11: And anybody who I, I did, we did something good for, you know, they're still coming as well.
• 30:11
  Speaker 11: And I think what we've gained, and what I'm hoping that we do in the digital world, is people trust us, you know?
• 30:20
  Speaker 11: And like you said, I don't get paid and then rate the product that is my sponsor.
• 30:26
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 30:26
  Speaker 11: Right?
• 30:26
  Speaker 11: 'Cause we would...
• 30:26
  Speaker 11: I, I will take money, by the way.
• 30:28
  Speaker 11: Everyone w- needs to know that, that you can sponsor me, but I'm not gonna have that affect how I respond to your product.
• 30:34
  Speaker 11: And, and I think that's one of the greatest assets that we have, is that people trust us.
• 30:38
  Speaker 11: And I think a lot of people here who tried to make their living as influencers, they started out having influence because they were often young people who had pretty good taste or were out there trying to discover new things, and then as the material ran dry, you know, you see the influencer at the supermarket opening around the corner talking about-
• 30:58
  Speaker 12: Well, sooner or later you need a job.
• 30:59
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 31:00
  Speaker 12: Okay?
• 31:00
  Speaker 12: Sooner or later everybody needs a job, and if-
• 31:02
  Speaker 11: Well, well, what I, what I think happened though was the money dried up- Yeah...for I'm gonna tell you about the things that I like.
• 31:07
  Speaker 11: Okay, now I've told you about all the things that I like.
• 31:10
  Speaker 11: Now I've gotta do things that will pay me, and we never wanna get there.
• 31:13
  Speaker 11: We ne- well, we'll stop the podcast before that.
• 31:15
  Speaker 12: Well, again, we don't need to get there.
• 31:16
  Speaker 12: The restaurants are, are how we make our living, right?
• 31:19
  Speaker 12: Yes.
• 31:19
  Speaker 12: The podcast is the, is the ancillary thing that, that we do because we, we enjoy it.
• 31:24
  Speaker 12: We enjoy interacting with the audience.
• 31:26
  Speaker 12: We like doing the shows.
• 31:27
  Speaker 12: We enjoyed learning from the people we're interviewing.
• 31:30
  Speaker 12: One of the great gifts that we get from doing this show is every single show I learn something from somebody who I'm talking to.
• 31:40
  Speaker 12: Every single show makes my restaurants better.
• 31:42
  Speaker 12: Every single show gives me something as well as the audience something, and that's, and I love that.
• 31:48
  Speaker 12: That's, it's the best part of it.
• 31:49
  Speaker 12: You
• 31:50
  Speaker 13: work in an industry where motivation is important.
• 31:52
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 31:52
  Speaker 13: Be, stay passionate.
• 31:54
  Speaker 13: Stay focused.
• 31:55
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 31:55
  Speaker 13: Uh, you know, every day you wake up and, you know, you got people coming to you, and you are the first one who needs to have fun doing what you do.
• 32:02
  Speaker 13: Mm.
• 32:02
  Speaker 13: And so what you guys are doing is best, because you keep ex- you stay excited.
• 32:07
  Speaker 13: Like you say, you meet new people.
• 32:08
  Speaker 13: And it's not about the numbers of people that watch the show.
• 32:12
  Speaker 13: It's the people that you touch.
• 32:13
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 32:13
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 32:13
  Speaker 13: It could be 10, 100, 100,000, one million.
• 32:16
  Speaker 13: It's the people that you touch.
• 32:18
  Speaker 13: You know, you mentioned about the tour before.
• 32:19
  Speaker 13: When I have client guests coming to the tour and I speak to them face to face and they tell me what I've done for them- That's the most rewarding thing you can have in life.
• 32:29
  Speaker 13: So if a client come to your restaurant and you change their lives-
• 32:33
  Speaker 11: Yeah
• 32:33
  Speaker 13: could be from food or whatever they learn from you, it's the best reward.
• 32:38
  Speaker 11: It is.
• 32:38
  Speaker 11: It real- it re- it really is.
• 32:41
  Speaker 11: So let me, let me ask you, though, and I th- because I think it is fascinating that what you have built with your show, um,'cause you're the new media.
• 32:50
  Speaker 11: You know?
• 32:50
  Speaker 11: You, you are on a YouTube channel and on, on some other platforms.
• 32:54
  Speaker 11: How does the b- how did you build the business?
• 32:55
  Speaker 11: How does the business work, if you don't mind my asking?
• 32:58
  Speaker 13: We learned over the years.
• 33:00
  Speaker 13: At the beginning, um, we couldn't rely on the income from YouTube, so we had, uh, market stalls.
• 33:07
  Speaker 13: We did catering, uh, chef at home, you know- Mm-hmm for wealthy people.
• 33:12
  Speaker 13: Um, we did cannoli at weddings, um, which is now is trendy.
• 33:16
  Speaker 13: We started- So trendy back in 2016.
• 33:18
  Speaker 13: So trendy, but- In 2016, my wife idea.
• 33:20
  Speaker 13: That was my wife idea again.
• 33:22
  Speaker 12: Caviar's taken over for cannoli, by the way.
• 33:24
  Speaker 12: The, the caviar person going around, that's taken over.
• 33:26
  Speaker 12: Well,
• 33:26
  Speaker 13: now they do cannoli with salmon, so they fill up sal- cannoli with salmon- Oh,
• 33:31
  Speaker 12: yeah
• 33:31
  Speaker 13: cream, and they put probably caviar on the outside.
• 33:34
  Speaker 13: So we were doing that to be able to support the creativity.
• 33:38
  Speaker 13: Uh, but now I have to say YouTube is a lot more generous.
• 33:42
  Speaker 13: Uh, YouTube and Facebook, you know, they're more generous.
• 33:45
  Speaker 13: They, so the more views you get, the more money you get.
• 33:49
  Speaker 13: While Instagram and TikTok, they don't pay.
• 33:52
  Speaker 13: Uh, what creators do is they use the, the audience-
• 33:56
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm
• 33:56
  Speaker 13: to work with brands.
• 33:58
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 33:58
  Speaker 13: So the brands pay them, and some people can charge a lot of money.
• 34:02
  Speaker 13: Uh, but we don't work with too many brands, unless it's a brand that we like-
• 34:06
  Speaker 12: Right
• 34:07
  Speaker 13: and willing to pay.
• 34:08
  Speaker 12: It's funny, so one of our advertisers is Magyar Bank.
• 34:10
  Speaker 12: Well, Magyar Bank's been my bank for 25 years.
• 34:13
  Speaker 13: Yeah, see?
• 34:13
  Speaker 12: They're, they are advertisers because we believe in them.
• 34:18
  Speaker 12: We don't believe in them because they're advertisers.
• 34:20
  Speaker 13: And it's the best- Mm because you work with people that support what you do.
• 34:23
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 34:24
  Speaker 13: And it's, it's wonderful when you find these people that, you know, that they have the same vision of yours.
• 34:29
  Speaker 13: But yeah, mainly YouTube.
• 34:30
  Speaker 13: YouTube, I have to say, you know, the American, uh, audience, which is the biggest in the world, it's, uh, allow me to do...
• 34:38
  Speaker 13: I, I'm talking about worldwide, globally.
• 34:40
  Speaker 13: I have to thank everyone globally, but the American audience has been, uh, our biggest one for a long time, and YouTube is big in USA.
• 34:47
  Speaker 13: It's big worldwide, and YouTube is generous, I would say.
• 34:51
  Speaker 13: So that's how we can pay for everything.
• 34:53
  Speaker 13: Do
• 34:53
  Speaker 11: you have a, do you have a big audience in Australia as well?
• 34:56
  Speaker 13: Yes, we do.
• 34:57
  Speaker 13: We do, but Australia's 27 million people.
• 34:59
  Speaker 13: Right.
• 34:59
  Speaker 13: USA is what?
• 35:02
  Speaker 13: 350?
• 35:03
  Speaker 13: That we know of, yes.
• 35:05
  Speaker 11: I wanna ask, is there one video that you've done that you think really stands out as either where you learned something or it, you, you found it particularly funny or fun to do?
• 35:14
  Speaker 11: Is there a, is there a pinnacle video for you?
• 35:17
  Speaker 13: No, well, more when I filmed videos with my grandmother.
• 35:21
  Speaker 11: Uh-huh.
• 35:21
  Speaker 13: That was beautiful because growing up I was never allowed to cook.
• 35:24
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 35:24
  Speaker 13: I was never allowed in the kitchen, uh, from my parents or my grandmother.
• 35:28
  Speaker 13: So being on set with my grandmother and You know, she teaching me how to cook, uh, dishes.
• 35:35
  Speaker 13: Now for me, that was been wonderful because it doesn't happen behind the scene.
• 35:39
  Speaker 13: Grandma, Italian grandmothers don't spend time teaching you.
• 35:42
  Speaker 11: Right, right.
• 35:43
  Speaker 13: They just say,"Bit of this, this bit of that." Yeah.
• 35:44
  Speaker 13: So for me, that was been wonderful.
• 35:46
  Speaker 13: But also working with, um, some beautiful chefs, like pizza chefs.
• 35:51
  Speaker 13: The pizza is a game that I didn't know, and learning about the pizza game from pizza chefs, that was cha- life-changing for me,'cause it gave me a new purpose.
• 36:02
  Speaker 12: A new canvas.
• 36:03
  Speaker 13: Yes.
• 36:04
  Speaker 11: Have you been to the States?
• 36:05
  Speaker 13: Not yet.
• 36:06
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 36:06
  Speaker 11: I, I'm gonna ask you about portions in Australia versus portions in Italy, because in a lot of American restaurants, the portions are much larger than they are-
• 36:16
  Speaker 12: Especially Italian-American.
• 36:18
  Speaker 12: That is the cuisine where people expect that you're gonna-
• 36:21
  Speaker 13: That
• 36:21
  Speaker 11: sounds
• 36:21
  Speaker 12: good.
• 36:21
  Speaker 12: Is
• 36:22
  Speaker 11: it?
• 36:22
  Speaker 11: I don't know.
• 36:23
  Speaker 11: I don't know.
• 36:23
  Speaker 11: It's a lot, a lot of pasta.
• 36:25
  Speaker 12: I, I don't know.
• 36:25
  Speaker 12: I like it.
• 36:26
  Speaker 12: Is that- But we're different, you and me.
• 36:28
  Speaker 13: Is that the,
• 36:28
  Speaker 12: is that the- You're a skinny little Irish guy.
• 36:30
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 36:30
  Speaker 12: I'm a fat Italian-American, so.
• 36:32
  Speaker 13: Is that the, is that the same in, uh, Australia?
• 36:34
  Speaker 13: The world is changing fast at the moment, okay?
• 36:36
  Speaker 13: Um, if you allow me two minutes to talk about this.
• 36:39
  Speaker 13: This is an interesting topic.
• 36:42
  Speaker 13: Uh, yes, the dishes are getting smaller.
• 36:44
  Speaker 13: The dishes are getting more refined, more fine dining.
• 36:50
  Speaker 13: People use the word fine dining now every day.
• 36:53
  Speaker 13: In Italy as well, the dishes are getting smaller, but this is what's happening in Italy, which I don't actually personally like.
• 36:59
  Speaker 13: All those fine din- so France was very smart.
• 37:03
  Speaker 13: Was that in the'80s?
• 37:03
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 37:03
  Speaker 13: The, the nouvelle cuisine- Nouvelle cuisine,'80s between'70s or the'80s.
• 37:07
  Speaker 13: '80s.
• 37:07
  Speaker 13: And they changed, and they brought France food, French food back to where, where it is now.
• 37:12
  Speaker 13: You know, one of the top cuisines, Michelin star restaurants.
• 37:15
  Speaker 13: But Italy is not that.
• 37:16
  Speaker 13: Italy has, uh, 20, 21 regions.
• 37:19
  Speaker 13: I can't remember now.
• 37:20
  Speaker 13: They are different.
• 37:22
  Speaker 13: But what the chefs are doing now, they're all going to chef school.
• 37:26
  Speaker 13: In b- in my old days, I work with very, very good chefs when I was young.
• 37:31
  Speaker 13: I was not allowed to touch the dishes.
• 37:33
  Speaker 13: But those chefs, you know, born in 1930, those chefs, they were chefs.
• 37:39
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 37:39
  Speaker 13: They were people who respected the job.
• 37:42
  Speaker 13: They didn't scream in the kitchen.
• 37:44
  Speaker 13: They were clean.
• 37:45
  Speaker 13: They were providing amazing dishes.
• 37:47
  Speaker 13: Today, didn't go to school once.
• 37:49
  Speaker 13: Now they all go to school.
• 37:51
  Speaker 13: They all want to become fine dining, Michelin star restaurants.
• 37:56
  Speaker 13: But they're forgetting traditions of every region.
• 37:58
  Speaker 13: So Italian cuisine is following the French methods of going that way- Mm-hmm with fine dining instead of chef from different regions focusing on promoting their culture, their food.
• 38:14
  Speaker 13: I'll give you an example.
• 38:15
  Speaker 13: We have a region called Piemonte.
• 38:18
  Speaker 13: We know where the, uh, where the Barolo is from.
• 38:20
  Speaker 13: Just above the Piemonte region, there is a region called Valle d'Aosta.
• 38:24
  Speaker 13: Oh, yeah.
• 38:24
  Speaker 11: Oh,
• 38:25
  Speaker 13: wonderful.
• 38:25
  Speaker 13: Tiny region.
• 38:27
  Speaker 13: Do you know the food about the region?
• 38:28
  Speaker 13: I don't know.
• 38:29
  Speaker 13: I've never been there.
• 38:30
  Speaker 13: That's pro- the only region I've ever been.
• 38:32
  Speaker 13: I don't know nothing about that region.
• 38:33
  Speaker 13: They have lots of cheeses.
• 38:35
  Speaker 13: They have amazing dishes.
• 38:37
  Speaker 13: I don't know nothing about, but I know about the reinvented carbonara.
• 38:41
  Speaker 13: I know about the, uh, modern Bolognese.
• 38:44
  Speaker 13: And w- we're, we're doing all these takes on old school instead of promoting what we already have To a larger audience.
• 38:55
  Speaker 13: Same thing is happening with the movies in America.
• 38:57
  Speaker 13: Look what's happening with Hollywood.
• 38:58
  Speaker 13: Instead of creating new movies that can become legendary, they're just recreating what's already been done-
• 39:05
  Speaker 11: Yeah, uh, in committee you
• 39:06
  Speaker 13: know, to make more money.
• 39:07
  Speaker 11: It's like food by committee, and it's like movies by committee.
• 39:09
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 39:10
  Speaker 11: It's wild.
• 39:11
  Speaker 13: Yes, you know?
• 39:11
  Speaker 13: And they all follow the same formula.
• 39:12
  Speaker 13: Like, when are we gonna see a new...
• 39:13
  Speaker 13: Why can't we just make a new great, a new, new Braveheart-
• 39:16
  Speaker 11: Mm
• 39:16
  Speaker 13: done a new way?
• 39:17
  Speaker 13: It doesn't have to be Braveheart 2.
• 39:19
  Speaker 13: It doesn't have to be Gladiator 2.
• 39:21
  Speaker 13: It doesn't have to be The Godfather 4.
• 39:22
  Speaker 13: Just do something that new, you know?
• 39:24
  Speaker 13: Like, the, in the food industry is the same.
• 39:26
  Speaker 13: So now the dishes are getting smaller in Italy, too.
• 39:30
  Speaker 13: You know, and what's happening as well, which I don't personally like, is the influencers have to go and promote the restaurants.
• 39:37
  Speaker 13: So the restaurant now, I don't know if you have to do it, too, uh, in, in USA, but the restaurants now have to charge you for the marketing.
• 39:46
  Speaker 13: So on the pasta dish they serve, they have to charge, uh, three influencers.
• 39:52
  Speaker 13: They got this three, this month, three influencers go and promote the restaurant.
• 39:56
  Speaker 13: It 10 grand to, to pay these people to promote the restaurant.
• 40:00
  Speaker 13: Who's gonna pay for that?
• 40:01
  Speaker 13: Us consumers.
• 40:02
  Speaker 13: Yep.
• 40:03
  Speaker 13: So the price go up.
• 40:04
  Speaker 12: People here do it.
• 40:05
  Speaker 12: We see people do it all the time.
• 40:06
  Speaker 12: I don't understand it, but I, you know, w- we're fortunate, right?
• 40:10
  Speaker 12: We've been here 34 years.
• 40:11
  Speaker 12: Uh, we have a very old-fashioned way of doing business.
• 40:15
  Speaker 12: It's just not a- an area we need to get into, but I can't imagine opening a restaurant right now
• 40:21
  Speaker 13: and paying- And it's beautiful what you're saying, and it's beautiful you're saying, but I was getting to this point.
• 40:24
  Speaker 13: So if you're a new restaurant, you have to do it.
• 40:27
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 40:27
  Speaker 13: But at the same time, you're a new restaurant.
• 40:30
  Speaker 13: Why do you have to spend$5,000 for someone to come and promote you?
• 40:34
  Speaker 13: I wanna promote you for free- Right.
• 40:36
  Speaker 13: Yeah if I adore you.
• 40:37
  Speaker 13: Right.
• 40:37
  Speaker 13: Because you're a small business.
• 40:40
  Speaker 13: I wanna promote you for free.
• 40:41
  Speaker 13: Promote you do it.
• 40:42
  Speaker 13: But what's happening at the same time because of this, the older school restaurants, you're doing very well and very happy, but there are lots of old school restaurants in Italy owned by families, and they are in the middle of nowhere.
• 40:54
  Speaker 13: Restaurants I used to go to when I lived in Italy, you drive one hour just because I know the food is amazing there.
• 41:00
  Speaker 13: Absolutely.
• 41:00
  Speaker 13: Those restaurants now are suffering- Yeah because those family restaurants are not paying to be promoted.
• 41:06
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 41:06
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 41:07
  Speaker 13: They're not doing videos, and the younger generations don't drive to go there and eat there because they are not trendy.
• 41:15
  Speaker 13: So this is what's happening right now, and I'm worried about it, to be honest.
• 41:19
  Speaker 11: Well, I wanna say two things.
• 41:20
  Speaker 11: One is I think another issue that I, we find with contemporary restaurants, um, is every new restaurant we go to, there is a lot of thought as to where you're going to take the picture of you And a lot of thought for what the food looks like.
• 41:38
  Speaker 11: And I find that, and especially in American cuisine, high-end restaurants, a lot of food that's coming out now in very expensive restaurants looks amazing.
• 41:47
  Speaker 11: And it's okay, you know?
• 41:49
  Speaker 12: I, I have to say, you know, there are a couple restaurants that I won't name, but I've been to a few restaurants lately where it's the, literally the most beautiful food I've ever seen, but tastes like nothing.
• 42:03
  Speaker 12: Might as...
• 42:03
  Speaker 12: I, I'll, I might as well eat this piece of paper.
• 42:05
  Speaker 12: But it's spectacular.
• 42:06
  Speaker 12: Soul,
• 42:07
  Speaker 13: no soul.
• 42:07
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 42:08
  Speaker 11: But it looks good on Instagram, so they get people to come there for a while.
• 42:10
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 42:10
  Speaker 11: But that doesn't, that doesn't last.
• 42:12
  Speaker 11: I wanna, I wanna s- throw this back to you.
• 42:15
  Speaker 11: Um, you were a major instigator in the great carbonara wars of the 2020s, um, in the cream, no cream debates.
• 42:24
  Speaker 11: A friend of ours, Jack McGarry, who owns-
• 42:26
  Speaker 12: Guanciale, no bacon
• 42:27
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 42:27
  Speaker 11: Right.
• 42:28
  Speaker 11: No, pancetta in a pinch.
• 42:30
  Speaker 11: But, uh, but our friend Jack McGarry is an Irish guy who owns The Dead Rabbit and some Irish bars here in New York, and they make pretty good food.
• 42:36
  Speaker 11: And he's like,"I don't understand why they won't let me put cream in my carbonara." You know, there was a real debate, and people were pointing fingers at each other, and not arguing about politics, but arguing about cream in carbonara.
• 42:47
  Speaker 11: I think that- Yes was a great thing.
• 42:49
  Speaker 11: And that did populate in the Instagram world, and it resonated, and it called attention to that dish.
• 42:57
  Speaker 11: And that's the kinda thing that I think is really healthy about what you're doing, um, is keeping those traditional ideas current and alive.
• 43:06
  Speaker 11: And,
• 43:06
  Speaker 12: and if you have those two dishes, the carbonara with the cream, which I had m- about a year ago at a restaurant not that far from here, versus a traditionally made, delicious, perfect carbonara, they're worlds apart.
• 43:22
  Speaker 12: They're worlds apart, and we shouldn't lose- They're different
• 43:24
  Speaker 13: dishes
• 43:24
  Speaker 12: we shouldn't lose that.
• 43:25
  Speaker 13: They're just different dishes.
• 43:26
  Speaker 12: Mm-hmm.
• 43:27
  Speaker 12: Yeah.
• 43:27
  Speaker 13: They're different.
• 43:28
  Speaker 12: Well, one's better.
• 43:29
  Speaker 12: We can say
• 43:29
  Speaker 13: it.
• 43:29
  Speaker 13: They're completely different.
• 43:30
  Speaker 12: We're grown men.
• 43:30
  Speaker 12: We can
• 43:31
  Speaker 13: say one's better.
• 43:31
  Speaker 13: But why does one need to use...
• 43:32
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 43:35
  Speaker 13: But that's why we need to use the social media the right way.
• 43:39
  Speaker 13: We have to use, we have to, we have sh- we have the power to use Facebook or any social media, YouTube, and it's powerful.
• 43:46
  Speaker 13: You share a message that doesn't matter what you do for a living, you can share the right information, and it's very powerful.
• 43:51
  Speaker 12: Or the wrong information.
• 43:52
  Speaker 12: It's also very powerful sometimes.
• 43:53
  Speaker 12: Yes,
• 43:53
  Speaker 11: unfortunately,
• 43:54
  Speaker 12: yes.
• 43:55
  Speaker 13: It's very powerful, and that's what's happening here.
• 43:57
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 43:57
  Speaker 13: That's right.
• 43:57
  Speaker 13: The dishes can really tell so much.
• 43:59
  Speaker 13: I'd always say one dish can, can make you travel.
• 44:03
  Speaker 13: If I have a good ramen, and I eat a good ramen right now, it takes me straight away to Tokyo without going to Tokyo.
• 44:10
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 44:11
  Speaker 13: You know?
• 44:11
  Speaker 13: That's the power of food, okay?
• 44:13
  Speaker 13: But at the same time, you know, like if you have, uh, you know, talking about Italian Americans, spaghetti and meatballs is a proud Italian American dish, right?
• 44:21
  Speaker 13: If it's done well.
• 44:22
  Speaker 13: Would you choose that or would you choose a new modern cuisine that looks amazing but might not taste comfort, you know?
• 44:31
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 44:31
  Speaker 13: What would you choose?
• 44:33
  Speaker 13: A$35, uh, fine dining beautiful, or would you choose- a$20 AV grandma style Italian meal?
• 44:44
  Speaker 12: Well, our restaurant's pretty expensive, so I choose the$30 spaghetti and meatballs.
• 44:47
  Speaker 12: The spaghetti and meatball
• 44:50
  Speaker 13: done well, okay.
• 44:52
  Speaker 13: Okay.
• 44:52
  Speaker 11: Well, you know, here- here's an interesting thing that you just brought up.
• 44:54
  Speaker 11: I mean, there i- there is a lot to be said for chefs, and especially in America, we're always innovating.
• 45:00
  Speaker 11: I mean, we, we have a bunch of different regional cultures, but our, our food culture doesn't go back as far as European countries.
• 45:06
  Speaker 11: Um, and we're always adapting an immigrant cuisine and blending different immigrant cuisines.
• 45:10
  Speaker 11: But when you talk about Mark's grandmother's cuisine or your grandmother's cuisine or the cuisine from Umbria, Abruzzo, Calabria, you're talking about a tradition and like with the best wines, a wine is from a specific vineyard, it has a specific story and a context.
• 45:28
  Speaker 11: And so I think when you're talking about these classic dishes, we're not saying that you shouldn't innovate and make something up entirely new and have fun with something entirely new.
• 45:35
  Speaker 11: Yeah, but
• 45:36
  Speaker 12: don't put peas in it.
• 45:37
  Speaker 11: But well- you can put peas in the new thing.
• 45:40
  Speaker 11: But, but don't...
• 45:41
  Speaker 11: If you're gonna call it carbonara, it's got to be carbonara, and carbonara has a story, right?
• 45:46
  Speaker 11: And that's kind of the basic, and you can go and be creative aside from those things, but we need to have the basis in the classics, I think.
• 45:53
  Speaker 12: One of the things I, I love about your show, people need to know what the origin is.
• 46:00
  Speaker 12: Before you go riffing, and you were talking about this earlier about the, the culinary students.
• 46:04
  Speaker 12: Before you go riffing on a cuisine, you have to understand the cuisine.
• 46:08
  Speaker 13: 100%.
• 46:09
  Speaker 13: Now, when you, you have, you have your restaurant, so you know what you need to do to keep the restaurant going, okay?
• 46:15
  Speaker 13: There are things you have to do to keep the restaurant going, and you have to meet the client halfway.
• 46:20
  Speaker 13: If the client wants this type of food, you have to do what they want.
• 46:24
  Speaker 13: If they don't want, you know, like y- y- y- you have, you have a restaurant for a long time, so you know how to run the business and you know what you're doing.
• 46:31
  Speaker 13: But like you said, innovation cannot be stopped.
• 46:35
  Speaker 13: Innovation is so important.
• 46:36
  Speaker 13: Yeah.
• 46:36
  Speaker 13: We need to be innovating.
• 46:37
  Speaker 13: We need to be cr- food deserved creativity, otherwise it's boring.
• 46:43
  Speaker 13: We need to create.
• 46:43
  Speaker 13: We need new dishes.
• 46:44
  Speaker 13: We need new movies.
• 46:46
  Speaker 13: We need new cars.
• 46:47
  Speaker 13: We need new, everything new.
• 46:49
  Speaker 13: Everything, everything becomes modern.
• 46:51
  Speaker 13: But do not touch something that is so perfectly done, something that is so good.
• 46:56
  Speaker 13: Leave it alone.
• 46:57
  Speaker 11: I think one of the int- one of the interesting things about our restaurant is having been in the same place for a long time and doing what we do, w- I will do whatever it takes that I can do to make you happy in that chair tonight, but if the new trend is to do something and Mark and I don't believe in it-
• 47:11
  Speaker 12: Jell-O shots
• 47:12
  Speaker 11: you can't stay, you can't constantly be chasing trends if you wanna be around for 20 or 30 years.
• 47:18
  Speaker 11: And after you've been around a long enough time, if you're still busy and still doing that well enough, you have the luxury to say,"You know, I think that's great, and another restaurant could do that well, but that's not what we're gonna do.
• 47:32
  Speaker 11: And so maybe this isn't the right restaurant for either you or you on the nights when you want that." And, uh, uh, we realize that's a great luxury,'cause we get to stand by our standards as well, which is pretty cool.
• 47:43
  Speaker 13: It is pretty cool.
• 47:44
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 47:45
  Speaker 13: I wanna tell you this, there are a few restaurants in Melbourne now that basically they are recreating the Italian grandparents' house look.
• 47:53
  Speaker 11: Mm-hmm.
• 47:53
  Speaker 11: Uh-huh.
• 47:54
  Speaker 13: And basically they give you that s- experience, you know, going back to your, you know, grandparents' house, like back in, you know, 1950 or'60s.
• 48:03
  Speaker 13: And the food served is the traditional way.
• 48:05
  Speaker 13: You know, it's not, the presentation is not amazing.
• 48:07
  Speaker 13: Mm-hmm.
• 48:07
  Speaker 13: They charge you, they charge you enough because of the experience, and there's a line outside.
• 48:12
  Speaker 13: So it's telling you that this restaurant is doing so well because it's comfort food.
• 48:18
  Speaker 13: It pleases everyone.
• 48:20
  Speaker 11: Well, you don't wanna wait in line for my grandmother's food.
• 48:21
  Speaker 11: That would never- That wouldn't be happening.
• 48:24
  Speaker 13: I'm sure she had some recipes.
• 48:25
  Speaker 13: Uh,
• 48:25
  Speaker 11: she was a good baker, but we...
• 48:27
  Speaker 11: A lot of well-done stuff and boiled stuff.
• 48:29
  Speaker 11: I'm gonna
• 48:30
  Speaker 12: tell you that Frances never invited me over for dinner.
• 48:33
  Speaker 12: No, not, never.
• 48:34
  Speaker 11: Unless I was cooking.
• 48:35
  Speaker 11: You
• 48:35
  Speaker 13: know, every culture, e- every culture has good and bad
• 48:37
  Speaker 11: things,
• 48:38
  Speaker 13: right?
• 48:39
  Speaker 11: Yeah.
• 48:39
  Speaker 11: Vincenzo, uh, we- What a
• 48:40
  Speaker 12: pleasure
• 48:41
  Speaker 11: we love what you do, uh, we respect what you do, and I watch you all the time.
• 48:44
  Speaker 12: He really does watch you all the time, and comes into work and says,"Vincenzo said this today."
• 48:51
  Speaker 11: Sometimes I'll, I'll, yeah, Vincenzo, I gotta be honest with you, sometimes I'll walk into the kitchen, the chef is like,"Don't tell me what Vincenzo said.
• 48:57
  Speaker 11: I don't want- don't say the word Vincenzo." Thank you for joining us on the show.
• 49:02
  Speaker 11: We're gonna put all of the information about Vincenzo's Plate and Vincenzo's book and everything else, uh, in the show notes at restaurantguyspodcast.com.
• 49:09
  Speaker 11: We'll be back in just a minute.
• 49:10
  Speaker 11: Don't go away.
• 49:12
  Speaker 14: Hey there, everybody.
• 49:13
  Speaker 14: Welcome back.
• 49:14
  Speaker 14: I- I'm really glad I got to finally meet Vincenzo.
• 49:17
  Speaker 14: I, I'm a, I'm a fan boy.
• 49:18
  Speaker 14: Yeah,
• 49:18
  Speaker 15: yeah.
• 49:19
  Speaker 14: You should all watch this.
• 49:20
  Speaker 14: So Pasta Grammars the other YouTube channel I watch, and Vincenzo's Plate, highly recommend it.
• 49:25
  Speaker 15: Constantly.
• 49:26
  Speaker 14: Yeah, exactly.
• 49:27
  Speaker 15: Constantly.
• 49:28
  Speaker 15: So one of the things Vincenzo talked about that he's really afraid of, right?
• 49:31
  Speaker 15: Yeah.
• 49:31
  Speaker 15: He's afraid of all these, these smaller mom and pop restaurants closing.
• 49:35
  Speaker 14: Yeah.
• 49:36
  Speaker 15: Easily my favorite restaurant stories in Italy happen every time we would go to Verona, to Vinitaly.
• 49:43
  Speaker 15: Oh,
• 49:43
  Speaker 14: yeah.
• 49:43
  Speaker 15: We would go to a little restaurant in Sommacampagna.
• 49:46
  Speaker 14: Sommacampagna, yeah.
• 49:47
  Speaker 15: I know it.
• 49:47
  Speaker 15: Sommacampagna, called Al Ponte.
• 49:49
  Speaker 14: Mm-hmm.
• 49:49
  Speaker 15: And it, just this wonderful little house, right?
• 49:52
  Speaker 15: It was just, it was just somebody's house, and you walked in.
• 49:56
  Speaker 15: You'd walk past the kitchen to the back of the house and have dinner.
• 49:59
  Speaker 14: So I remember, it was a funny story, right?
• 50:01
  Speaker 14: So the, we went, and one of our distributors- Mm-hmm and importers said,"Hey, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take everybody out.
• 50:06
  Speaker 14: We're gonna go to Trattoria Al Ponte," right?
• 50:09
  Speaker 14: It was,"Oh, we'll go to," and we'll take a little bus out.
• 50:11
  Speaker 14: We'll go there.
• 50:12
  Speaker 14: We went, and he bought everybody dinner, and this is before the euro.
• 50:15
  Speaker 14: Mm-hmm.
• 50:15
  Speaker 14: That's how long ago this was.
• 50:16
  Speaker 14: So we g- go ourselves.
• 50:19
  Speaker 14: We go the next night, and, and someone's like,"I'll pick up the check.
• 50:22
  Speaker 14: It's a party of 10." And you're like,"No, no, no.
• 50:24
  Speaker 14: I'm gonna grab the check." And Mark grabbed the check, and he's like,"The check's like$9." Now I'm not so grateful to you.
• 50:30
  Speaker 14: Translate this lira.
• 50:31
  Speaker 14: Oh, wait a second.
• 50:31
  Speaker 14: It was,
• 50:32
  Speaker 15: it, it- Yeah we had a six or seven course menu, and they just brought you food and brought you food and brought you food.
• 50:38
  Speaker 15: And I, I- And wine seriously, seriously I think it...
• 50:40
  Speaker 15: And wine.
• 50:41
  Speaker 15: I think it was$18 a person.
• 50:43
  Speaker 14: Yeah, it was crazy.
• 50:43
  Speaker 15: And it, it just, yeah, you know, hope, I hope, hope, hope that the next time we go to Vinitaly that that restaurant still exists,'cause we are definitely going.
• 50:51
  Speaker 15: So
• 50:51
  Speaker 14: we learned something at that restaurant.
• 50:53
  Speaker 14: I don't know if you remember, but so we, we would go on a t- week that we were there three or four times, and then again the next year- Mm and then two years later.
• 51:00
  Speaker 14: And so I think it was our third year going back there that they kinda knew us.
• 51:03
  Speaker 14: Mm-hmm.
• 51:03
  Speaker 14: And then the son who was waiting took us into the kitchen, where we learned how they...
• 51:08
  Speaker 14: I mean, they made their pasta, and it was a filled pasta.
• 51:10
  Speaker 14: Oh,
• 51:11
  Speaker 15: I know.
• 51:11
  Speaker 15: I remember what we learned.
• 51:12
  Speaker 14: And we learned that the...
• 51:14
  Speaker 14: We were like,"Why is this pasta so great?" Is the mother was cooking the pasta in chicken stock.
• 51:20
  Speaker 15: Mm-hmm.
• 51:21
  Speaker 14: And I was like,"Of course." You know?
• 51:23
  Speaker 15: So good.
• 51:23
  Speaker 14: Yeah, it was pretty amazing.
• 51:24
  Speaker 15: Those dumplings were amazing- Yeah, yeah because they were cooked in chicken stock.
• 51:28
  Speaker 14: And I, we do that once in a while- Yeah here as well.
• 51:30
  Speaker 14: Really terrific.
• 51:30
  Speaker 14: It was a great time.
• 51:31
  Speaker 14: Well, that was a great little walk down memory lane with you, Mark.
• 51:34
  Speaker 14: I loved meeting Vincenzo.
• 51:35
  Speaker 14: I've loved this whole show, and I'm just, as an Irish guy looking into the Italian world, I'm, I'm very jealous.
• 51:40
  Speaker 14: Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed everything.
• 51:43
  Speaker 14: I'm Francis Schaeff.
• 51:44
  Speaker 14: And
• 51:44
  Speaker 15: I'm Mark Pasqua.
• 51:44
  Speaker 14: We are the Restaurant Guys.
• 51:46
  Speaker 14: You can always find out more at restaurantguyspodcast.com.