Luca Pardini, Edoardo Grassi e Marco Civitelli

 Credits Brambilla-Serrani

 Credits Brambilla-Serrani

Ceresio 7

via Ceresio, 7
Milan
+39.02.31039221
info@ceresio7.com

«Now we’re entrepreneurs, but holding a dish, to serve at the table», ironizes Edoardo Grassi, 38-year-old from Ostia, synthesising the ascending curve of which he is the protagonist together with Luca Pardini and Marco Civitelli. The climb mentioned above, led them to the fourth floor of what once was Enel’s building and now hosts restaurant Ceresio 7, with windows overlooking half of Milan and large terraces with a double swimming pool. «This is a sort of membership club», 41-year-old Pardini from Caserta explains. In other words, this is an unusual model for the city of Saint Ambrogio and one that also has another novelty, a sort of case history: the ownership is that of a company, SixP, 40% of which belongs to Dsquared2, and the remaining 60% to the above mentioned trio together with renowned chef Elio Sironi.

So after 15 years of hard and desperate work, Grassi-Pardini-Civitelli moved from being waiters to being managers and owners, with some thirty employees and a huge guestbook that has no white spaces because since the day they opened, on September 20th, the tables seating 75 people (90-110 per day, considering shifts) are always fully booked. This is a great satisfaction for a team that cemented itself day after day in the Milanese Bulgari Hotel, again with Sironi in the kitchen.

Grassi, having archived his surveyor certificate, arrived here in 2004 after little less than a decade spent practicing his job – from simple commis to waiter & bar manager – in the Hilton group, first at the Cavalieri in Rome, then for two years in London at the Park Lane hotel; in Milan he found Pardini, who had attended catering school in Piedimonte Matese, and soon an indestructible pair das formed, with the latter seconding the former, director of Food and beverage. This tandem received lots of acknowledgements: Pardini was“barman of the year” in 2007 according to Guide de l’Espresso, which then awarded the Bulgari itself as “bar of the year” in 2011.

In 2006 31-year-old Civitelli from Varese joined them after graduating in Tourism Economics at Iulm in Milano and a six-months’ internship with Paolo Teverini in Romagna. In his case, he took a short internal cursus honorum and has taken a further quality leap. From waiters to entrepreneurs in a prestigious successful restaurant. Gene Wilder would scream: «It could work!».

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They were simple waiters, but years of experience at the Bulgari Hotel has turned them into an indestructible trio that is now the co-owner, and manager, of a prestigious restaurant in Milan, with some 30 employees, namely Ceresio 7

by

Carlo Passera

journalist born in 1974, for many years he has covered politics, mostly, and food in his free time. Today he does exactly the opposite and this makes him very happy. As soon as he can, he dives into travels and good food. Identità Golose's editor in chief