An amazing opportunity was afforded to ai3 upon our
engagement into the La Tagliatella team - a benchmarking and team building trip
to Spain to meet with the project team, sample the La Tagliatella food, and
witness and observe, firsthand, the Tagliatella dining experience. ai3 has been
engaged by AmRest, the parent company of the La Tagliatella restaurant concept
for its North American roll-out of restaurants.
The La Tagliatella brand is a well-established Italian
restaurant concept based in Madrid, Spain, with locations throughout Spain and
into France, Germany, India, and China.
With several North American locations scheduled to roll-out
in the coming months, ai3 traveled with the project team to Madrid to benchmark
several of the existing locations. It was a whirlwind tour of locations. Chris
Carfora and I started our Spanish adventure, leaving Atlanta on an overseas
flight on Wednesday evening, traveling through the night to make our initial
meeting at 9am, Madrid time, at the Tagliatella home office in
Pozuelo,
Spain. There, we met up with Mike Muldoon, David Smith, and David Henzlik of
AmRest, North America, Mary Reynolds and Kelly Norris of The Reynolds Group,
along with Maciek, Piotr, David Justo , and Steve Winegar.
After a few team meetings, we all piled into a mini-tour bus
with the ambitious agenda of seeing 14 Tagliatella locations, all of which had
certain idiosyncrasies and unique elements that would help paint the picture of
the desired design aesthetic that needed to be maintained in North America.
With jetlag weighing heavy on our bodies, we managed to get
through all 14 locations, stopping to eat lunch and dinner along the way. Our
resounding opinion of the cuisine at La Tagliatella was that of incredible
flavors, powerful influences of hand-made, caring pizza combinations, and
delicious pastas and sauces. The food was so very amazing and will definitely
cause a stir in the US. There was a sense of authenticity to the food - the way
only true Italian food can. We can only compare it to what we have come to know
as Italian cuisine here in the US, but it was distinctly different - something
that can only be fully understood through experiencing it. This difference of
offerings will be a game-changer for the Tagliatella brand in the US.
The care and detail of service was equally impressive. It
might have been the language barrier that added to the mystic of the service,
but there was no mistaking the love and care that every server had for the product,
the company, and the reputation. Every single person we encountered that worked
for the La Tagliatella brand demonstrated a level of care that no doubtedly
added to the experience.
The Spanish culture has a wonderful casualness about it. It
slides the work day slightly forward into the day. 9am meetings didn't really
start until 10 or 10:30. Lunch begins somewhere in the 2pm hour and dinner
before 9pm is unheard of.
After our whirlwind tour of Tag locations, and Day One in
the books, ending around midnight, we crashed hard, trying to catch up to the
new time zone.
Day Two involved several meetings with our Spanish
architectural counterparts, ABC Arquitectos, and the local millwork/artist that
designs and supplies much of the interior decor, DecoRetro. The team seemed to
nicely complement each other's strong suits and the morning's meetings resulted
in well-coordinated efforts for the first three Tag locations in the US -
Metropolis and Emory Point in Atlanta, and
Clarendon Blvd in Arlington, VA.
Meetings
ended around lunchtime and we quickly popped back to our hotel in Pozuelo, for
a quick refresh and then headed into downtown Madrid to check out the Spanish
culture and nightlife.
Our first destination was the Mercado
de San Miguel. The “Mercado de
San Miguel” is one of the oldest covered markets in Madrid. It was recently
refurbished and now offers and whole new concept of market. You can actually go
and buy good fruits, cheese (more than 100 different varieties) and fish among
others things… you can also have oysters with a glass of wine while reading a
book bought in the library recently opened inside the place.
Its
33 shops offer a great variety of the best delicatessen products in a
magnificent setting. It can be called the market of this century even though
the Market is almost one hundred years old (it was constructed in 1916).
The Mercado was the ideal portrait of what I think many
warehouse redevelopment projects in Atlanta are trying to emulate. Rows of fruit
stands, ham or jamon legs hanging all about, and Sangria stands littered
throughout the market. Market San Miguel seemed so alive with locals and
tourists alike that it created an energy of metropolis that most everywhere
else would love to have.
After sipping a few Sangrias with the team, we headed over
to Plaza de Mayor.
The Plaza Mayor
has been the scene of multitudinous events: markets, bullfights, soccer
games, public executions, and, during the Spanish Inquisition, "autos de fe" against supposed
heretics and the executions of those condemned to death. The Plaza Mayor also
has a ring of old and traditional shops and cafes under its porticoes.
Celebrations for San Isidro, patron saint of Madrid, are also held
here. The Plaza Mayor is now a major tourist attraction, visited by thousands
of tourists a year. We posed for a few photos, drank a few beers, and
generally took in the scene. David Henzlik even danced and/or taunted a
creature in the square, ultimately making friends as he went.
Dinner wound up in another public plaza where we dined on ox
tail, jamon belotta, olives, beer and wine.
After Friday, Chris and I were on our own until Monday's
flight back to Atlanta. The team said their farewells until next time and we
headed to the train station on Saturday morning to figure out how to book a “bullet
train” ride to Barcelona, our departure city. The bullet train, called AVE,
Alta Velocidad
Española is a service of high-speed rail in Spain that reach speeds of up to 310 km/h. The name is literally translated from
Spanish as "Spanish High Speed", but its initials are also a
play on the word ave, meaning "bird".
We had only a few things on our itinerary in Barcelona, the
penultimate event being the Barca-Valencia football match on Sunday evening.
Upon our arrival in Barcelona, we quickly realized that the few words of
Spanish that we picked up on in Madrid would do us no good in Barcelona as
Catalan was the local language. While it was somewhat similar, negotiating taxi
rides and ordering food was difficult. We made our way to Hotel Cram, a really
cool and hyper-modern hotel in NW Barcelona, midway between Camp Nou and the La
Rambla, the main tourist drag in Barcelona that led down to the waterfront. The
juxtaposition of the old building’s exterior and the breath-taking avant-garde interiors
was a beautiful combination.
Our first matter of business, though, after checking in was
to figure out how to claim our football tickets for the game. Tourism is, no doubt,
the main industry in Barcelona and they made is very easy to claim our tickets
from ATM-like machines littered throughout the city.
With tickets in hand, we were feeling great about seeing the
city. We rambled down La Rambla, stopping in a few stores and wandering through
a few artist markets in small outlying plaza off the main strip. Our day ended
down at the waterfront for dinner on the docks, overlooking the marina.
Sunday began with an amazing tour of the "Third
Cathedral" of Barcelona, Sagrada Familia - the unfinished masterpiece by
legendary artist/architect/builder Antoni Gaudi, distinct
with his architectural and engineering
style—combining Gothic and curvilinear Art Nouveau forms. His elegant use of stone and concrete to form the most
organic structure literally brought tears to my eyes upon entering. This is a
journey that EVERY architect needs to do to understand the possibilities of
design and the impacts and responsibilities that we all have to the world
around us to create lasting works of art and architecture that embody our
cultures and our generations.
Our minds quickly shifted to football as we made our way to
Camp Nou. The football museum at Camp Nou is one of the most visited museums in
all of Spain and it did not disappoint. To see the Champions League trophies on
display was incredible.
The game, later that evening, was all it was touted to be,
with the blaugrana victorious by a score of 1-0 on a brilliant goal from
Andriano, a young and spritely defender that curled a shot from outside the
penalty box into the upper right corner. Messi, Iniesta, and Xavi were amazing
and so very much a step above everyone else on the pitch. It was an experience
I'll treasure forever.
Our flight back stateside on Monday morning was long, but
nicely uneventful. The trip left a lasting impression on both Chris and me. The
Spanish culture is amazing and their way and pace of life is admirable. They
work hard, play hard, have distinct points of view and opinions, and generally
love and live life to the fullest.
We left with the unequivocal opinion that the La Tagliatella
concept will do extremely well in the United States. The team that has been put
together for this effort believes so fully in the possibly and their enthusiasm
was so very contagious. The ai3 team is excited to be a part of such an
endeavor.
