Giuseppe Bonavitacola, the man behind Tacloban’s famous Italian-Filipino restaurant Giuseppe’s, clues us in on how a young chef like him has been able to carry on with the almost three-decade family legacy under the most challenging and unstable period for business owners.
As a chef, Bonavitacola admits that working for a restaurant is tedious. It requires long hours and demands more from everyone in the team. “Weekend and holidays are the hardest days from already hard everydays. You have to move as fast and as organized as you can. You give the people you are with in the kitchen with everything you have at all times. It makes you harder and more resilient,” he explains.
During the peak of the pandemic, the restaurant closed for about a month which is the longest time the restaurant has ever closed since it opened 28 years ago. Given the unexpected twists and turns, they gradually started to accommodate take-out requests and moved the restaurant to cater “to-go” orders.
“We came up with the idea of becoming a one-stop shop. Since traveling was not an option for many of the locals, we thought it would be great if we could bring the travel experience to them through food. We already made pizza a classic and staple of our restaurant so what followed next was only natural. They were able to buy fresh bread made in our brick oven to go along with various cheeses, meats, and wines which we started distributing as well during the pandemic,” Bonavitacola shared.
Surprisingly, Bonavitacola noticed that the locals responded well to this shift and so the restaurant successfully pivoted from dine-in to take-away. What was also interesting was that people started to experiment more with their palate. They became a little more adventurous and willing to try new things.
Bonavitacola remembered an experience he had with Chef Marc Chalopin who had him teach everyone how to make arancini. He shares, “As I finished making one and gave it to Chef Marc, he asked me ‘How is it?’ Then, I said, ‘I hope it’s good.’ He looked at me and said to be confident in what I cook. That spoke more to me than anything else I’ve learned in the kitchen. Since then, I live by that, to be confident and competent with whatever I make in the kitchen.” Chalopin is the executive chef at í‰cole Ducasse Manila at Enderun Colleges. He maintains the standards of Alain Ducasse and ensures that the philosophy, culinary principles, and techniques are properly transmitted to students.
