EUGENIO MAIALE

AFTER 30 YEARS IN THE INDUSTRY, A TAVOLA’S EUGENIO MAIALE IS EMBRACING A NEW BUSINESS MODEL AND WILL RETURN TO THE KITCHEN WITH A RENEWED LOVE OF COOKING.

When Covid-19 first hit I almost didn’t believe it. It wasn’t until two weeks before we had to shut down that I really started thinking about the reality of it. All of a sudden, the tap was just turned off.

My wife Michelle and I, and my business partners worked harder than we have in our lives, dealing with the stress of the closure and trying to get everything in order – between sorting out superannuation, suppliers and letting go of staff

– I just wanted to crawl into a hole.

I started to question everything – was what we’d worked for across 30 years in the industry, and 14 years on the A Tavola group – worth it? So much of hospitality is about confidence – and to question that was hard. There was a week where I went into a really dark space. But we also knew we had to be positive and we had to make it work. We hadn’t come this far to throw it away. We put our heads together and started thinking of ways to survive – still delivering the high standard of food we love doing. We started by packing our pasta; and all of a sudden we found this new opportunity. I’d always wanted to create a centralised place where we can test and create pasta and train our staff. Now I’ve taken over two vacant bakeries at the Tramsheds precinct to create a centralised pasta production kitchen, and created A Tavola at

Home. We’ve had so much support from our staff and locals. We’ve also inherited an amazing wood-oven – and we’re excited to be launching our own focacceria later this year. It’s a new market for us and one that I’ve always pushed away. I had tunnel vision – it’s hard not to. What I tried to initially avoid is what saved us.

It’s funny how things in life repeat – when

I first opened A Tavola in Darlinghurst in 2006, it was just me in the kitchen. We had my close friend Nick from Gelato Messina and my wife Michelle on the floor. As the years moved on and we opened more restaurants, I moved out of the kitchen to run the businesses. Now I’ve got to this stage where I’m so excited to get back into the kitchen. We’ve gutted the whole restaurant and given it a total refresh – and it’s the same feeling of when we first opened all those years back.

It’s like fashion, it all just comes back around.

Now I am pumped and ready to get back in there – I want to be on the pans and fully immerse myself again. It’s hard work, but it’s beautiful.

This has been a big reset. Now we’re only going to be open five days – and taking the two days off truly for myself and the family. It’s also about offering our staff a good place to work and a quality of life. It’s really opened our eyes to what’s important. Close the door, go home and be a really good father and husband. Instead of being stuck in a time warp. In this industry – the hardest thing is to switch off. But now I’ve realised, why waste the energy? I am going to put that energy into new dishes. Talking to staff. Opening a bottle of wine, drinking it, talking about it and learning about it. Because even at my age there’s always something more to learn. atavola.com.au

Man, I cried those first few weeks. It was crazy. I was scared. No one knew what this thing was. As a chef, you think, “Well, if it all goes to shit I can always get on a plane and go somewhere.” I’ve worked everywhere in the world. I’ve never had a problem getting a job in my life. All of that got taken away from me in one fell swoop. There was nowhere to work. How do I make an income for my family? It felt like I had all my limbs cut off. There was no way of moving. That’s what scared me the most, I’ve never felt so helpless.

We started Chefs on Wheels and just put all our energy into that. There were days that we were working 17 or 18 hours a day and we were so worn down – but it just had to work. It was really built out of desperation and a necessity to create a revenue stream to pay bills. From there, it just took off. We gave ourselves three or four days to prepare and switch a website on. It spread like wildfire. The website melted down on the first day and we had more orders than we could fulfil. Normally for a business like this you would try and have a three to six months lead in. But we didn’t have a choice.

The decision to leave Botanic Gardens Restaurant was more personal than a business decision. In hospitality, career comes before family and friends. It’s very hard to balance your life with your job. Going back to Botanic would be going back to what I did before and I needed to change a few things. I wanted to bring balance back into my life. Chefs on Wheels is obviously a great facilitator of that. It won’t be my be-all and end-all but it’s definitely a stepping stone. I wanted to connect more with the customers and go back to the grass roots of why we do what we do. It’s to cook for people and to nourish and look after them. I think that’s what we did at the start, we were looking after people’s souls.

At the start we said we’re better in numbers so we have to work together as a community.

We’re not competitors, we’re helping each other with a common goal. After the first couple of weeks, we realised, “We’ve got a business here that’s going to work for us.”

Covid-19 pushed us to where we are now but we’ve still got to keep working hard to keep it going. Plus, we still need to be spending time with our families and keeping flexibility in our lives. Making sure those things are in check. We don’t want to leave our jobs to work in a situation where we’re just bleeding ourselves dry like we were before.

Our daughter is three and she’s out of her skin now. She’s a very smart girl (I’m biased) but we saw a massive change in her just from spending more time with her, taking her to school and picking her up from school everyday. Obviously we’re still working a lot but time is a lot more flexible when you own your own business and you don’t have dinner service every night. We still have to meet deadlines but it’s a more flexible situation. If she needs you, you’re there. I’ve been to more kids parties than I’ve ever been to in my life. That is real quality time. That was the reason I didn’t go back. I looked in her eyes and thought, “No, I’m not going back to that. I’ll do it for you.” chefsonwheels.com.au