Can a restaurant thrive with only one dish? Mattia Cicognani shares how his "magic" approach to Italian dining and a focus on human connection turned simple concepts into Miami’s most viral destinations.
Please introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your career path
Mattia Cicognani: I grew up in the hospitality business. My grandfather was a restaurant owner in Bologna. I'm from Bologna, actually. A city very close to Bologna. And I fell in love with the hospitality. Hospitality is really welcome, you know? And when you have somebody in your house, that means the real sense of hospitality.
I always worked in the hotel business and also in a restaurant, and moving to Miami was a challenge. Before that, I was a professor in an economics and management school in Modena in restaurant management.
I've written books about hospitality. I've written articles about hospitality. And yes, I moved to Miami. And it was a challenge. And we opened this, some really Italian restaurants. And we 84 Magic Hospitality.
So you went from the academic life to the practical life in hospitality. You proved that whatever you talked about works.
Mattia Cicognani: It's exactly like that. When you teach, you actually learn something. And I am still teaching, and I am still learning. And that's what happened here in Miami.
Now, about 84 Magic Hospitality, magic already is incredible. And if I can translate this into Italian, it means magia. And hospitality is actually magia, because what I say to my employees is that we’re in a theater.
We have three important points of this magia. 84 Magic means people, which means the people who work for us and our customers. The second point is the food. We have an idea of the great Italian food, and we know what Italian food means. And the last, but actually not least, is the atmosphere, which means what you feel when you are in our restaurants. You can feel to live in Italy in a couple of hours.
We opened the first restaurant, which is called Cotoletta. We have just one item on the menu, it's a veal chop Milanese. It’s just one item, but all the generation like that, the Milanese, you know? And then our second restaurant is called San Lorenzo, which is a no-menu restaurant. And the last one is called Si Papà, and we serve just lasagna. Lasagna Bolognese and tiramisu. So, that's it.
What are the non-negotiable hospitality principles to you?
Mattia Cicognani: Well, hospitality, as I tell you, is about feeling welcome. And then it's not negotiable because when you think about people, you think about everything. The atmosphere, that's one of the main points I think, non-negotiable in the restaurant business.
On the other hand, we think our server, waiters, and manager must be very in love with our concept. The people are going to tell you about the concept, about the dish, who should be very much more in love with this concept than our customers.
And then I think that means hospitality. And that means the secret of good living. And Italian knows that.
Can I say this is the secret strategy for the success of all the restaurants of 84 Magic Hospitality? Because all your restaurants went viral in a few days after opening.
Mattia Cicognani: I don't know if strategy can be the exact word. The thing is, as you know, Matthew, we don't have a menu. In each restaurant, we don't have a menu. That's something very strong for, I think, for the American culture. It's also strong for Italian culture, but not for real, because we are more involved in this.
Usually, I gotta tell you, Italian cuisine is about regional cuisine. If you go to Bologna, my town, for example, the most important dish you can eat is the lasagna bolognese, or the tagliatelle a ragù la bolognese, or the tortellini, you know. It's something simple, but you can find that dish in every restaurant in Bologna, which means every restaurant.
And I don't know if it's a secret, but when we started to speak about that, so we have no menu, people were very, very interested in it. And that's create curiosity, which means I love curiosity and I love curious people. And that was really important for us.
And when people try us, and they can find a good hospitality, which means the sense of beauty, which means the sense of Italian beauty, which means the sense of simplicity, then it can be a good opportunity to trust, for the guest to trust you, to trust the experience.
How did you come up with this one menu item idea?
Mattia Cicognani: I'm Italian, and the only cuisine I know very well is Italian. So, Italian cuisine is huge, which means a lot of dishes, a lot of pasta, a lot of types of pasta, a lot of sauce, a lot of everything.
Our first restaurant is called Cotoletta. Cotoletta means Ville Cioche Milanese in Italian, as you know. The great thing about the Ville Cioche Milanese is for everybody. This dish is for everybody. Everybody likes this dish. It means a lot of people.
You know, because that is very important. Because sometimes you can go to the restaurant, but you wait one, two, three months before you come again. Now we have customers coming every week, eating the same things.
If you eat pizza once a week, you can also have a great lasagna once a week, and you can also have a great veal chop Milanese once a week. So that was less strongly what everyone was expecting.
A lot of restaurateurs that I have interviewed over the past year told me that rapid expansion kills the hospitality culture. So what's your take on that?
Mattia Cicognani: I don't think it kills hospitality. Losing your roots does. Each restaurant we open can be very different, but the values must always stay the same. That, I think, is how hospitality stays alive.
When you open a restaurant, that can be tough sometimes, especially if you do that in a year like ours. But if you have great people, which means the great staff, that can be very easy. And our staff is like a family. I have known people on my staff since I was a kid, when I was three or four years old, and they have worked with me.
How can you train your front of house to sell the concept of one single meal?
Mattia Cicognani: That is a very great question. And I still think about that. The secret of what you say to the customer, which is great, is to learn well and to feel comfortable in what you sell.
If you are a waiter, and you have a long list of ingredients for a dish, and you never tried it, that is really difficult to sell. It's something about love. Well, yes, but I'm lucky. You know why? Because I have three different concepts, three different restaurants, from which my waiters can choose where they want to work.
What makes you hire someone right away after an interview?
Mattia Cicognani: Well, I fall in love with people. And if people are thinking about the future, I will fall in love immediately. Either if they don't have an idea about service, because this is my work. Mean, I was a teacher, and I know so well about service. And I can teach everybody. I need people, I need good people. This is the point. I need people who have a dream. I need people who love what they do.
Hospitality is known for its high turnover rate, and when you add the diverse market in Miami and the competition, it even makes things harder. How do you handle that?
Mattia Cicognani: I always think people need to see in the future some opportunity. And people can see in the future some opportunity only if they can see a staircase. First of all, we have three different concepts. And we can switch people from one restaurant to the other if they are looking for that.
What is the added value of having a human front of house instead of an AI?
Mattia Cicognani: AI is very important for the world. But if you want to go to a nice Italian restaurant, eat one dish, and have a nice dinner, you need people. That is so important. You must meet people, speak about food, and speak about the moment. And that is so important. It's all about people.
Check Our Career Growth Tools
What you just described over this interview is the kind of emotionally driven hospitality first environment that you have created over these restaurants. So what is the one most important piece of advice that you would give to someone who wants to work in this same environment or wants to start something in the same environment?
Mattia Cicognani: Well, it's about thinking about the real sense of hospitality. Hospitality is emotional. It's not easy. You work when other people go to the party. But it's beautiful because it's about reading people. It's something more than that. It's a presence. And that can't replace it. means it's beautiful. But you have to understand your work is emotional. And that, for some people, is not easy.
But the sense of hospitality is about feeling welcome, as you said. And that is so important to understand.
Check out more interviews like this brought to you by OysterLink to learn about the industry. You can get them straight to your email by creating an OysterLink account and joining our newsletter.
Loading comments...