On being a patron

The frown, full of zeros, of many chefs who look at us from everywhere, starting from the first television screenshot, to the sides of lorries and the walls inside the underground. This while from specialised magazines a lament arrives, crying the eternal crisis of the dining room. For better or for worse, there’s something for everyone to criticize, except for patrons, who have always kept restaurants together. As important as ever, especially when the economic crisis would lead to quite a few compromises towards the nostalgic trend of comfort food or the spending review with regards to supplies.

Claudio Amadori, however, will not accept this. For almost twenty years at the helm of Le Giare, one of the most elegant places in the first inland of Cesena, he interprets his role with true, Romagna-style passion. «I come from a family of hotel-owners, and after finishing my studies it came natural to me to follow a road that was already traced. At 22 I had my first beach resort, I was renting it because I wanted to see and learn; two years later I was running it by myself and in a short time I was able to repay my father what he had invested. All this, thanks to the introduction of a gastronomic offer on the beach: salads, panini and first courses together with aquatic sports, jet ski and beach volley.

The second year of my management I also rented the beach resort next-door, to offer avantgarde services while reducing costs. The project was so successful that we received an offer we could not say no to and we sold. However, I could not go back to be an employee. So I invented a new profession: my family owned a winery in Montiano. It was in the middle of nowhere but with a beautiful view of the hills and up to the sea. At the beginning it was really expensive... all by myself... far away from the trade routes... the first debts, this time no longer with my father but with suppliers...

When the first positive signs arrived, I took the chance straight away and enlarged the dining room with an open space. Hence the possibility of organising banquets and the virtuous circle of investments, swimming pool, new kitchen, crystals, cellar. Money, however, was not enough. I could feel it. I was looking for something different. After all, being rich doesn’t mean you’re good so I began to invest in people, without ever moving my feet from the ground: a project, to support itself and grow, needs to make you dream, widen your horizons, fail and start again and all this comes at a cost, so an entrepreneur must always know what to do and where to go and quickly too. In my case, this included getting pissed from time to time, I wanted to demonstrate that I’m not the son of someone, but the creator of my own destiny.

So here we are, in our days. I shared a long part of my life with Omar Casali, over nine years: I owe him a professional thank you. However, at one point I felt I had to change direction and look for the man. Even though this change was not easy, putting a business that was already functioning and had a clientele at risk. By coincidence, Gianluca Gorini was returning to Romagna from Tuscany, newly father. He had what was most dear to me: the experience of a great maison, side by side with Paolo Lopriore. So I placed my bet on him and his signature cuisine, even though it would have been easy to be successful every night by offering raw fish and bubbles.

My ambition is different. Not forgetting the woman who is beside me and makes me certain of the value on which I based my life, that is to say family. Without her, none of the above would have been possible. In fact I’d say that it was because of her, to be beside her, to make her marry me and have the certainty of a family project together that I worked hard, even in the hardest moments of her illness».