Meet the restaurateur looking to turn up the heat

“IT HAS never been a deliberate strategy for celebrities to come in. How can it be?”, says San Carlo managing director Marcello Distefano of the restaurant’s attractiveness to footballers, soap stars and other members of the local glitterati.

“Nobody gets a freebie, nobody gets invited. Then it’s a snowball effect. The product has to be good, they have to like the atmosphere and the service.”

The same is true of diners, with the growing menu of restaurant options meaning the established brands must work hard to attract customers and keep them coming back.

Mr Distefano, son of founder Carlo, said: “We have got to keep learning, we never believe we have it perfect. We have to keep reinventing ourselves, trying as hard as possible to introduce customers to new things and new foods.

“We have to always be competitive, value is so important. Everything should be accessible to the majority of people.

“We offer pizza and pasta – you can come here and spend a little per head or a lot.”

The group, which operates restaurants under several brands including Cicchetti and Fumo, also continues to evolve the look and feel of its restaurants.

“We have been doing a bit of revamping, we always like to keep them fresh,” he said.

“We are upgrading colour schemes and materials – we see a lot of restaurants stay the same and they wait too long. We have to keep the customers interested.

“We are doing the same to Liverpool soon. We recently did it to Cicchetti in Manchester. You can’t stand still.”

Carlo Distefano opened the first San Carlo restaurant in Birmingham in 1992, with the group steadily building up to the 17 UK sites it now has – although Marcello has growth plans bubbling away.

“We are looking for other sites in the UK. We should hopefully have a few more in the next 12 months.

“We think two to three is enough for us. We are never overly aggressive in trying to find sites. At the moment we don’t have private equity, we are not set on a path where we have to achieve certain numbers.”

Another site in Birmingham is a “possibility” while a third London site for a Ciccheti restaurant has been identified.

The group also operates franchises internationally, with the recent opening of Cicchetti Qatar adding to restaurants in Bangkok, Kuwait City, Beirut. Bahrain is coming on at the end of this year.

“We don’t have a set strategy in terms of being aggressive and looking for sites in the Middle East,” said Mr Distefano.

“I probably get four to five approaches a week. We vet those franchises and see how much passion they have and if they have the right resources.

“Franchising is a cleaner model. At the end of the day, when you are going internationally you can’t get round the restaurants as much. Over there we look for partners that will replace our presence.”