From Gigetto to Miane around the world and back to the club

The restaurant has always been managed by the Bortolini family, the kitchen is now firmly in the hands of his son Marco

A good dose of listening skills, a pinch of humility, an accurate balance between the different visions of the future. This could be the recipe for a successful generational change in a restaurant: just the one you can enjoy at the Da Gigetto restaurant in Miane. Beyond the gastronomic metaphor, in what is one of the “historic” gourmet destinations in the Treviso area, the Bortolini family seems to have found a happy balance between the demands of two different generations in the sign of that “there is always something to learn” that patron Gigetto promotes.

A lesson that his son Marco, for years at the head of the kitchen, he learned from his family since he was a child (“since I was more annoying than anything else in the kitchen”), which he then studied at the hotel school and which he perfected in eight years of work in large national restaurants and international. «Updating is essential, because cooking is constantly evolving, it is a living and lively subject that you never stop learning, updating, improving», he says.

“Since I returned to the family restaurant, twenty years ago, I have always brought you all the innovations that I have learned and that I continue to observe in my travels and in my contacts with other colleagues with whom I like to compare myself”. But always starting from an essential point: its territory. «The restaurant was born before me, so I couldn’t stray too far from the kitchen that my father founded, revolutionizing and expanding the Locanda alla Stella of my great-grandmother Gioconda and my grandmother Anna. Some traditional dishes can never be missing, but I have made them more contemporary, such as the famous “sopa coada”: I removed the most important browning to lighten it, but it remains our dish with a strong identity. Furthermore, also for ethical principles, I buy many ingredients from local producers and aim to bring out local products even in dishes that include ingredients or processes that are not part of the local tradition ».

So, is it easy to take the place of such a famous father who is still so present at the restaurant today? «Not always», chef Marco points out, «the comparisons, and perhaps the contrasts, are continuous but remain in the family business and for this reason they are also pleasant and constructive. As is the comparison with my sister Monica, who oversees the hall and cellar: we have an excellent working feeling, essential for everything to work. But our family is above all a well-tested system, with a strong shared philosophy, with my parents always present, my mother with her full attention to the guest and my father with his vitality entirely dedicated to the dining room but always with an eye. also attentive to the kitchen. We are a highly professional team but also very “familiar”, also assisted by fundamental people such as German Rasera, our right hand man for many years, e Roberto Pieri, a sommelier who with my father and my sister has visited wineries all over the world to supply ours ».

“In fact, thanks to the great work done by dad and Roberto, being responsible for our large cellar is easy for me”, adds Monica, “first of all because I like it very much, but also because I have inherited a heritage not only of bottles but of knowledge , of relationships and also of notoriety. For customers, “a tour in the cellar”, among bottles, niches, rooms and memorabilia accumulated over the years, is the added value that I am always happy to guide, as well as the tastings that we organize “.

And what do you think of Gigetto, of the new and already tested new generation in command? «I am proud of my children and their commitment», he says, «and also of how they keep themselves constantly updated without ever overshadowing the territory. I remember that, in the seventies, with my wife Elda we saw our success grow and tried to offer Miane dishes similar to those discovered in our many trips to France, but which were too ahead of their time and local tastes. The critics flattered us, I continued to win international awards, but the customers dwindled. So we preferred to devote ourselves to traditional cuisine trying to modernize it. And Marco, with different tools at different times, continues in this direction ».