WHEN Marco Giannasi sold Battlefield Rest after 50 years in the hospitality industry, he decided he wanted to make something that created “a historical capture” of the trade.
The restaurateur, who is now semi-retired but still works part time at the Italian restaurant, decided to write a book called Dining Tales, featuring some of the most well-established voices in Glasgow.
“I wanted to do something a little bit different to celebrate that [semi-retiring] and share the events of the last 50 years but also to share a lot of people in the trade that have been very very successful over the years with a good reputation,” he explains.
“So, I started approaching them and said ‘would you like to share a story and capture your experience from childhood or when you started your path to success’ to get a collection of stories from all these hospitality operators.
“I approached a few and they were very excited, very interested, very open to my invite and I found it very pleasant to speak to a lot of people that I knew from the past but we never met each other over the years.
“So, we started from named like Café Gandolfi, Two Fat Ladies, Unalome, Coia’s, Celino's, all very well-established places.
“I picked a very selected bunch which I’m very happy with.”
Marco sold Battlefield Rest, which he founded in 1994, to long-serving staff member Alex Matheson and wife Jen Doherty in December 2022.
The restaurant business runs in his blood with his father, Luigi, having opened Glasgow’s first Italian restaurant Canasta on Parliamentary Road in the late-1950s,
Marco says he hopes Dining Tales, which was released last month, will prove to be historical record of Glasgow’s hospitality industry in 2024, citing how there is nothing similar which captures the stories of some of the city's long-gone eateries,
He said: “The hospitality industry are very happy with what we’re doing and the concept of the book.
“The end concept of the book is one, a record of restaurants and executive chef operators in 2024 so it’s a historical capture of this moment.
“Because if you think back if you’re the new generation you don’t know what happened.
“When my father opened the first Italian restaurant in Glasgow in the 1950s and all the successful restaurants that came afterwards and created a base for what we have today it all disappeared, so we don’t have any memories of what happened in the past.”
Marco produced the book with writer Alex Meikle, who edited and wrote up the interviews that Marco conducted.
Having dined regularly in a large number of Glasgow’s best restaurant and with his experience writing both fiction and non-fiction, Marco thought he was the perfect person to work with on the project.
Marco says he enjoyed interviewing hospitality bosses across the city and found it to be a positive experience.
“For me it’s been a great experience because I had the opportunity to save a little bit of history from each one of them,” he says.
“All the operators I spoke to, they’re so proud of what they’re doing when they go to work.
“When they go to work in the morning, most of them don’t go to work. They go because they are so driven by their enthusiasm and their passion. I’ve found all of them amazing.
“They’re not there just to make money. They’re there because they love what they’re doing and they’re very serious and determined to succeed.”
He continued: “Every time I stepped out from each of the interviews, I felt very upbeat about everything.
“I felt so reassured that there’s so many good people around.
“There’s always doom and gloom about the hospitality trade but those people I would say, everyone was so positive.”
Despite Dining Tales just being released last month, Marco is already thinking ahead to his next possible project.
He added: “My idea would be maybe to go to another city next and do another Dining Tales and listen to more stories from other operators.”
Dining Tales is available for purchase now. You can find out more at dining-tales.co.uk.
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