A young consultant, in the second year of running his own business in the Philippines, Jespher Millano, the founder of año Restaurant and Bar Consulting was contacted by the client, a chef looking to open a restaurant, through Instagram in early 2024.
A group of co-owners were looking for creative concept support to get the new restaurant venture off the ground. “The chef had previously had a restaurant that unfortunately closed due to a lack of footfall in a challenging location,” says Millano.
For this new venture in the upscale area of Makati in Metro Manila, he sought out the assistance of a foodservice consultant.
He explained to Millano that he would like to open a friendly casual Italian restaurant with traditional cuisine while the two co-owners were looking for a more modern approach.
It fell to Millano to balance the two preferences. “The result was Tavolo: a blend of the chef’s classic and traditional cooking in a modern setting. We decided to have modern interior design as well as more modern crockery and table settings,” he explains. A major selling point of Tavolo is that it offers authentic Italian cooking and imports many ingredients from Italy.
The restaurant, being located on the ground floor of a condominium building, caters to families as well as the wider community in the neighborhood. “There are special promotions targeted specifically at the residents in the building and for hotel occupants in the surrounding area,” he says.
Millano’s original brief grew and evolved over the time he worked with the group and he helped to shape the name of the restaurant, which was originally going to be called Divino. “We had this whole process in our branding development package to create the name as well as the logo and collaterals,” he explains.
Design work was not part of the original brief but the partnership extended to elements of planning back and front of house, including the kitchen, private dining areas and the main dining room, along with other spatial planning aspects. At the end of the process, the services provided by the año team extended to the recruitment and interviewing of some staff.
The kitchen staff of 14 are spread across shifts: breakfast, lunch and dinner service. They work in a space dominated by the large pizza oven, positioned in the open kitchen so it is visible from the dining room. The main dining room seats around 36 diners and this is complemented by an additional private dining room with space for 14 covers, as well as a semi private dining area for eight people.
Millano was very focused on ensuring there was sufficient space for staff in the open kitchen and decided to sacrifice an office area to provide a kitchen that was pleasant to work in.
Learning and growing
While the creative process and concept development was smooth for Millano, he found some challenges in working around construction plans that had already been finalized by the time he joined the process.
“During construction there were some aspects that were not part of the concept I had initially laid out,” he says.
“I would have loved to be more involved in the operation sourcing supplies and equipment as well as the interior design. And crockery, as I probably approach it with a different perspective.”
As a young consultant with a growing business, this project provided many vital experiences and lessons for Millano and he is very proud of the final result. “Every time I visit, I think, ‘Wow, I was a part of making this,’” he says.
Tina Nielsen
