106 | From Modern Classics to Accessible Cocktail Culture: Federico Riezzo on Villa Mamo, Terroir, and Scaling Hospitality

This is Maffeo Drinks.

Whenever you meet a young bartender now, all they want to do is to make great cocktails or crazy cocktails or, like, you know, forward thinking drinks. And I think there's very few of them that it's like, I'm gonna sit here at at the bar of my own town and learn how to greet guests and learn when to make jokes, when to be serious, when to offer drinks, when to shut up. You know, these are the key to bartending.

In this episode, I left the walls of the studio and went to the border of Tuscany and Umbria in in Italy to visit my good old friend, Federico Riezzo. So this episode is a little bit a different one. He's been working in many of the places that made the history. He has been working in Australia, in New York. He was the co founder of an event agency back in Dublin.

He has seen things from very different perspective, and now, with his new project Villa Mamo, where we actually recorded this episode, he went into hospitality, but he hasn't forgotten his roots into preparing delicious food and delicious cocktails and upscaling them, enhancing them with some fresh botanicals from from his garden. We talk about bars that are guest first versus techniques first. We talk about how can we scale for brands, cocktail culture, and spirits culture in general. We spoke about so many things, and I don't want to spoil the the episode. So let's dive in now.

Federico, thanks for having me here in your beautiful Villa Mamo.

Thank you.

Welcome to the Maffeo Drinks podcast. I mean, you mentioned Douglas Ankrah. You know? Bless him. The that era of the London scene, like the Penicillin, the porn star Martinis, it gave birth to classics, the modern classics.

If I'm right, that hasn't happened anymore. You have the classics and the Negronis and the mythology of cocktails. Then there is that era. It's very modern, recent. The way cocktails are developing, they're not meant to last.

I mean, not that those people created them to make them last. The basil's the basil's mash

It probably is the last one that I can think of.

After that, there's there's there's there's Federico's creations Yeah. Know. And Chris's creations, and they don't tick. They don't leave that bar.

It's really hard. It kind of there is so much production, but all of the trends in cocktails and also food because social media invention is just so quick. It just don't last. It's always like you scroll, there's another one after. There's another days for like, oh, I'm gonna have that.

I mean, it goes to be like a small town like or neighborhood like, but I don't think it goes on the global thing. Is it even for food? Can you name the dish that is gonna be a classic?

Well, it's probably Italian.

Well, I know. But there's so much output out there and so many influences getting mixed, it's just so hard to keep up. There's just so much out there.

So that's my challenge to you.

From a bartender perspective, you should never challenge what a guest want, you know. I remember I was judging a panel for a cocktail competition, big cocktail competition. And I went to a bar and felt like having an espresso martini. And the bartender was like, no, I'm not doing an espresso martini. I'll make you something better.

And really annoyed me because if somebody comes to my bar, to house, and they want anything, I'll make the best of it. I want you to remember it. Eventually, again, this journey, I might change your mind and let you try something else. But you never say no, you don't have that. And it happens to me, so like some really good cocktail bar, like top 50 is I what I want the cocktail of like, No, I shouldn't have it, that's a big girly.

I remember this guy saying that really annoyed me. Well, first of all, it's my money. It's my palate and it's my night. Who are you? So, but anyway, we just to go back.

For example, Aperol Spritz, I've changed so many people by selling the Vermouth and tonic. Just to give an idea, like, how much power the bartender have. Right? Going back to these new classics, I don't know. It is really hard, but what I love and what I'm doing here is, again, educating people with what I have around and create a a story, a legacy of Villa Mamo and the cocktails that we offer here.

So tell me about that because yesterday we went through the garden.

So we're very lucky that the Tuscan and Umbrian countryside, it's so rich of beautiful herbs. We collaborate with this girl, Cartarina. She's a forager, so she knows everything about local herbs, wild herbs that you probably look at it on, like, just wild grass. So she's amazing. So we're collaborating a lot.

We get a lot of her foraged and then we create liquors with that. And then I would like, what I'm doing here is to create four or five like standard drinks that are always in the bar fridge, but also collaborate with the guest and see if we can do something more bespoke. So for example, they want something light, want something citrusy as in like herbaceous, they want something with lemon, they want something with lemon jam, lemon tincture, olive saccaro, and all of, you know, it gradually with what they want, they create their drink. I just put ingredients together physically, but it really is your drink.

When you said you were gonna open Villa Mamo, it's a bit of a change from bars and events and catering stuff. Probably, you have quite a few here anyway, but being from Roma, I've been going to Ascanin for forever. I know it quite well. There's always this atmosphere, a hills and the villas and so on, but it's always missing this element of caculture. And you being the host bring that element or somebody that is going to a to a venue like this, you know, that they can get a pinnacle of cocktail experience.

Yeah. Exactly.

Apart from a Chianti red wine and whatever.

Well, exactly. Like, you know, let's be frank. Like, bottle of Chianti, whether you buy it here or you buy it in Arizona, still gonna be a bottle of Chianti. Right? Obviously, here, it makes more sense here because of the surrounding, all the romanticness and the violin playing and the opera in the back.

But I just felt, yes, there was a bit of that culture because one thing that I wanted to say to you on this podcast is that some of the bars right now are just so serious. Know? Just when you go to this, again, this top fifties, to just the sense of austerity beyond the bar and just seriousness. And come on, let's face it. Like, wanna go, you wanna have some fun.

When you go to a cocktail tasting as well, you're not going to lesson do on PowerPoint. You're gonna have some fun. You're have this music. That's what we wanted to bring as well to my wife. She's a DJ, so we do aperitivo nights here at Villa Mamo.

Wow. So she plays the tune. We have a chef that just comes out with what's available in the market. At the moment there is peppers coming out and tomatoes coming out first. You know, we just push with anything we can make it, we can create.

And then we also include that in the cocktails as well. I just want to a three sixty things. We want to amplify that a little bit and still using the produce, but just give cocktails. So people on holiday want to have a cocktail with this heat as well. It's just great to have a cocktail.

What we're doing is we're trying to give that leisure feel without getting too shit faced. So we turn the volume of the alcohol, excuse the pun, the alcohol volume a little bit so that people can enjoy it even more. Even because you have to consider like today's 35 degrees. You have two customs like right, I'm going to bed now. You know what mean?

Don't want to enjoy the night.

Which I did by

the way. We didn't drink though. You want to refresh yourself, you want to have a great fun. So that's, you know, I think lower grade cocktail it's something that I really enjoy.

Mhmm. Servilant drink. Do people get it?

Oh, 100%. 100%.

One of the points also with what I like about playing with ABV, with alcohol by volume, the is the fact that if you are transparent into that, you can actually trade people in. Because it could be a cocktail that are gonna be same ABV level as a strong beer, for example. Or, you know, you can play with certain things because there is a bit of a stigma of what, you know, like, no, don't want to drink that much. I

think this is kind of the best of both worlds, you know, because people are, or the younger generation, they're not drinking as much, they drink more on occasion, but they wouldn't go to the pub on the Tuesday or to the bar drinking coffee on the Tuesday. They might go there because DJ playing a certain type of music, but they wouldn't go there just for the sake of drinking. So this kind of falls in between where you can still enjoy the crafted, delicious, as complex as you want to make it without compromising on taste and techniques and effects, but also without compromising on your health. So, I mean, they find a great balance because as a maker or a server you can still play just as well with the drinks, but you also have more people buying it and consuming it. If a cocktail is 12 Euro with 40 or 50 ml of booths, would you pay 12 Euro for one that has, you know, 20 ml of booze or half the amount of booze?

You know, that's a bit of a thing.

Which is a great point, like, because it's what I wanted to ask you. You know, there is that element. It's the same thing with restaurants. Now there's now vegan Schlinstar restaurants. And, you know, is it about the meat that costs more, or is it about the the production of it?

No? So I had this discussion because, for example, when it comes to no and low, I mean, like, no alcohol, you know, there is that stigma on pricing. That come on, like, you know, I'm gonna have a a Coke for, you know, for for for €5. Yeah. Why am I gonna have your nonalcoholic cocktail for?

But then when I know that that €5, it's it's a super industrial product while maybe you picked, know, the botanicals and you you foraged it and it's a fantastic product. What margin wise, what's better value for money?

I can buy a bottle of elderflower liqueur for €15 while I can go and forage my own elderflower that requires more time. Also, that has such an impact on people's appreciation. It goes back to the trust element that we

were discussing at the beginning. The fact that if I know that rising is right, I'm gonna go for more. Because you explained to me that the elder elderflower liquor is actually made by you, and you point the plant where you got it from.

But I can take it, show the photograph of

my And then I can actually I say, you know what? It tastes delicious, not like the the syrup. Yeah. And I'm gonna go for two or three rather than only So ultimately, it's not only the margin. It's about, you know, rotation, how many I'm gonna get and so on.

So it's a bit of mathematics, like, cannot make it super simple now. No. But it's it's part of

the experience. If you rip off people, you rip them off once. That's it. There is way that you can still make gains, but you also have to think of the longevity of your business as well. You want returning customer and you want the customer to return to bring their friend and their friend to become their, you know, become great gift.

And that's how you really build some great bars. Because, you know, let's be frank, whenever you have, this has always been, you know, whenever we had the event company, whenever we would see great bar staff we would pay them shitloads of money. Because they would return five times as much money. And it seems like a cliche, but if I can give a word of advice, invest on your staff, treat them super well. They're gonna work twice as hard, they're gonna bring three times more money and they're gonna create a vibe because they're gonna love working for you.

As opposed to, you you save £2 on somebody or on a guy, you come more pissed off, he doesn't give a damn about your place, about selling, you know. Empower them, give them benefit. You sell this much this month, we're look after income. Just, you know, as simple as it sounds, it does work.

Yeah. It reminds me when I was at university and there's a professor, one of my favorite professor meeting, an example that stuck with me that he was talking about a vase company. Now I'm looking at that beautiful vase. And he was saying, you know, the customer goes and buy the buys the vase and then puts it in the car and, you know, and he breaks it. And you don't really know if he broke it, if it was chipped.

That that's not clear. No? So he goes back in and is like, honestly, I need to get a new one because this one just broke and honest, I don't know if I broke it, if it was damaged, whatever. There's two scenarios there on on the vase shop owner. You know?

One is that it's like, sorry. You bought it. You paid for it. Now I'm gonna pay you know, you're gonna pay a new one if you want another one. Or the other one is like, he doesn't know.

He probably knows the customer broke the base

Okay.

Loading him the car. Here's a new base, free of charge. And he was asking, who makes more money? I'm not gonna give the answer yet. Just gonna leave it there.

But this is so important.

I completely agree with you. Like, sometimes, I don't know, it's a lot more complex, the discourse about, you know, wages and GP and things like that, but sometimes I think that owners or restaurant owners, they should see stuff as the prime investment, as opposed to prime expense, you know? Because we need Would you just go back to what I was saying, being the gatekeeper of sale? You know, once you have great stuff, keep them tied to you, make sure they don't leave, make them happy because as I said, you make friends, they call their friend, they call their friend, next thing you know, in three months, you go to bar full because of the one guy, the one girl, the one waiter, the one bartender. But it is that thing.

Or on the other side, they stop their friend from going Exactly. They stop all their friends from going there.

Even in The US, you know. In The US, there's a lot of this gap between top and bottom. Most of them are in the middle, and they all go there because they all know the bartender. Now, in America, it's different because bartender in America, got loads of tips, they kind of have to give the So, lot of, Oh, let's go there.

That's also more like American self confidence in service. But also there's another level of service there. I remember again, honeymoon, having a stay having a steak in a in a restaurant in in Palm Springs. And then I I had the best. It was amazing.

You know? And then I pay and everything. It was in the hotel. And then in the evening, it was so great that I I wanted to have the same dish. You know?

And and then he said, how was it, sir? And and I said, like, to be honest, it wasn't as good as I wanted to reorder because I I loved it at lunch. Tonight, it wasn't really the thing. It's on us. I just wanted to give him a feedback.

I didn't want to get it for free. I didn't pay for it. And, obviously, you get it on the tip. Pay of But it's that thing that makes you feel so welcome instead of just like, sorry, shit happens. You know, like, you know, like the

But the the easiest things that, now that you mentioned it, that it's a big thing for me, is called criticism, right? Called constructive feedback or things like that. In Italy, you say compliments are like money. Everybody wants them, but the fake one always creates big problems, you know? So, I always tend to be, just being honest, if you like something, tell your friend.

If you don't like something, tell me, we'll make it better. Right? But there's also these things that people are either there on a mission to complain and be absolute, you know, monster or Karens, you know, speak to the manager and so on, or they're like overtly compliment it without telling you the truth. Because let's say, if I make you a drink and it's exactly the same drink, you're not gonna have the same reception as your wife or your friend and so on. So we can talk about as much as we like, but we're also gonna feel it, you know, taste completely differently.

I think it's important that I think it's good, I think that's great. I just don't think that was for me. Because you can't say like, it's bad. It's I didn't like it. If I put like three samples of gin or vermouth in front of your mouth, you try once, it's a bit dry, it's a bit sweet, that's very bitter, you'll be able to tell them.

Yeah, absolutely. That once you choose the one that you like the most, there is absolutely no escape. You're in a box now, because I'm gonna make you drink what you've chosen. You're gonna love it.

Yes.

Right? So

But also, I'm get challenged by my wife again. We're talking about wives today.

We're surrounded by

them. We are surrounded by them. They are they're behind here. But, you know, the like, she's always speaking. It's like, don't say that.

Don't say that. There was too much salt. I would just wanna tell the The chef that the the the the the sauce on the on the tomato sauce on the margarita was, like, crazy. I mean, like, it was just so salty that I put Parma ham on top. I I was crying.

Yeah. Know? So I wanna tell him because then he can fix it or or use another one if he's putting the ham on there.

100%.

And but at the same time, isn't there and you tell me as a current bartender, mixologist, that there's too much complementary bubble within the industry. You go to a bar in Barcelona in the Paris and then you feel almost like oblivious after the guy or the girl has told you the road of up and the lack of fermented, crazy things that they went through that you just you're just scared to say like, I don't like it?

It's a tough one. Yeah, I completely see it. Again, depending on how comfortable you are with the stuff. We went to a very famous cocktail bar in Rome, me and my friend Kieran. We had great expectations, which were not met at all.

And we tried a lot of their cocktails because we were curious and they just didn't deliver. For us, now let's be clear, that it's not because I didn't like them, they were all crap drinks, because I didn't, you know, they didn't ignite anything from me. It wasn't like, wow, there's none of them. When it came, because the bartender were so aloof, they were just not delivering a great service throughout, we were there for about two hour, there was no engagement, there was no questioning, like there was a girl next to me sitting on her own from Mexico, and I started to chat to her about, you know, she worked in a big bar and restaurant in Mexico City. I was like, this is not my job.

Like, there's four of you behind the bar. She'd be like, you know, just out of curiosity, like, bartender is like traveling without moving and you get to meet all these people from, you know, all over the Great story. I met Angelo Badalamenti, you know, the film composer. I didn't know what it looked like. We were just having the chats at the bar.

It was closed. Was late in the night. I was working with this hotel. And this old man was like, Can I have a nightclub? Like, Of course, sir.

Your guest in the hotel can see as much as you want. But we started to chat. As the night went through, because I was still cleaning the bar, but we just had minutes. It was a one to one. He was like, so what do you do?

Was like, I work for a film company. What do do? Like, I make music. Ah, okay. But I tend not to ask questions about work.

Some people just don't want to touch the body, just want to relax. So I'm going a bit off pisty, bit off but it's a great story because literally I'm a big fan of Twin Peaks and we were just chatting with this lovely, lovely gentleman. I was like, you got a lot of work here? You're from The US? Like, yeah, are you going to stay here a lot?

Yeah, I'm working with this director on this big project. May I ask, would I know him? I was like, yeah, his name is David Lynch. I'm like, and then, you know, the one on one altogether. Your name is Angelo.

You work with David Lynch. I'm like, are you Angelo Badalamento? I'm like, yeah. That's me. Pleased to meet you.

The big Italian American accent. Was like Again, shiver. Oh my god. That was just you know, you meet an an icon. You know?

It's just for me, at least. And, again, which the interest of having this beautiful person could be the most boring person in the world as well, one of the most creative genius of all time, but you've got them at your disposal. Very few people, very few professions have this space for interaction if you think about it, you know? Because everybody's just either working behind the desk or working on a computer or want to play. Like you have this moment with guests, they are having a drink, so the problem are behind or inside their brain or whatever.

Know, you have this, you know, precious moment to get to know some incredible people. And that's Yeah. That's why I I I met, you know, when you say like, I hooked you up people in Melbourne, people in LA, it's just because I love people, and I just tend to struck a great friendship.

Know? I always got I always got free drinks, by way.

Yeah. So you must

you must like, everybody, they told me, like, is gonna is gonna pay for it. This but but also, let me ask you another question. Isn't this also, you know, the lack of I don't wanna call it a lack of service, but experience and this kind of thing. Is it also connected to what we were discussing at the beginning, the struggle to find workforce. Some of the careers are fast tracked in the wrong way.

On the bartending scene, sometimes there's a very self confident guy or girl, and then, you know, you have been doing it for one year, but you are I don't wanna say a bar manager, but maybe a shift manager, a senior bar you know? Sometimes I feel this kind of disconnected. I'm like, how are these how are these titles thrown at people?

Completely agree with you, Chris. I think that, you know, whenever you meet a young bartender now, all they want to do is to make great cocktails or crazy cocktails or like, you know, forward thinking drinks. And I think there's very few of them that it's like, I'm gonna sit here at the bar of my own town and learn how to read guests and learn when to make jokes, when to be serious, when to offer drinks, when to shut up. You know, these are the key for the bartender. If I want to put camel milk in a drink, I'll just quit.

But learn to serve your guests, read your guests, interact with your guests, entertain them, sell them, become their friend. That's where there is a massive lock into the modern hospitality, you know? That just this space for the safekeeping, just the welfare of the guests. It's not all about drink. The drink is great, but you will always remember the guy that entertained you, made you laugh, made you cry, shared the moment.

So, Federigo,

I think it was a great chat. Thanks a lot for your knowledge.

I I think, I don't know. I've listened to your podcast. I think this is just a bit of different thing, different perspective, a different position of the bar. By listening to your podcast, you always give it preferences of telling the one bottle, two bottles, telling the case. And a lot of them is product, but also the way you handle the product itself within the different levels of the of the bars.

Am I right in saying that?

Absolutely. I mean, like that for me, the podcast is is a way to test my own theories as well. Now challenging myself, and I'm always saying whoever comes to the show, to say, you know, you don't have to agree with me. You know, like, just feel free to challenge me. You know, like, make me think in a different way.

I changed my mind on so many things if you listened. I explained it in a different way, which is exactly what we're discussing now on reading the room. You're not the Negroni guy or behemoth ambassador or whatever you are. You love gin, love whiskey, you love rum. Depending on where you are and how you can amend that path, you know, that that kind of like tube map.

Yeah. You know, there's a beautiful tube map by Blair Bowman. Tube map. Okay. You know, if you like this whiskey, the closer one is this or the closer one is this, depending which route you wanna go.

Smoky, you know, like the, you know, like the ingredients. But it's a little bit similar here, on on the fact that if we don't scale spirits and cocktail culture, let's call it spirits culture more than cocktail culture necessarily, the industry is not gonna succeed. There's a lot of stuff about now. Spirits are struggling, people are drinking less, you know, there's a lot of kind of, you know, pressure on the industry, people getting laid off and so on. Let's be honest and let's think outside the box to really understand, okay, I want to I want to bring something different and I want this to scale.

Know? Like, yesterday, we were laughing when we went to that, you know, super tiny bar. Yeah. Like a proper Italian bar, not not a bar. You know?

It was just like a cafeteria or whatever you wanna call it. It's a village Yeah. You know, there were, you know, you could order pizzas. They made cappuccinos, spritz,

and was a there

bit of an aperitivo there. And remember you were saying to the girl, wanna leave a tip, which is like, it's there. It was hidden. We almost had to go behind the cashier to put that coin in. Those little things that she probably never thought about.

Yeah. And if we don't, that's the beauty of this knowledge sharing thing like the podcast is I want to help people in upscaling and and understanding how do we scale this. And if we don't explain it in a simple way to people, it's never gonna happen. You know, we're gonna we're gonna stick stick to the world we're discussing. Neuro ice cube transparent clear up experience, which the the customer of the basic pub is gonna challenge you.

Like,

oh, you know, like, it's only ice here. Like, you know, if you put anything

in it,

you know, to the other one in which, you know, you're gonna get a spritz with three ice cubes that are gonna melt in this wedding in thirty seconds. Exactly. And how do we bridge that gap

For sure.

Between those two worlds?

Let let me ask you something. Like, what about, you know, the power that bars and restaurants world have on the sales of certain brands? Do see that Anchorage? Do you see that power that they have? Is it something that you fully believe that look, we have a good quality product.

If we give the right training to the selected bars, do you think that that scales for the brand? Do you think that it has a bit of a a bit does it have an effect on ultimately on on

I think it's only happening in the super simple propositions that are easily scalable and repeatable. Take the Spritz example. Three two one. Sure. Easy.

Now people still mess it up.

Yeah. Good.

Yeah. But more or less, you know, these these three ingredients, okay, you may mix up the selection, whatever. For me, like as a non bartender, Negroni, why is it so because it's easy. You know? One third, one third, one third.

You cannot screw it up. You're okay. You can put a little bit more bitter

For sure.

Little bit more gin, very much depending on what you want, but whatever. Hendrix Gin, I work with the brand, and I'm a big lover. You know? I always plug it in, because I I work with them, but because exactly. I Because that's how I was brought in back into the gin category.

The gin and tonic, I I hated gin and tonic. Hendrix brought me back in. How the cucumber, the premium tonics. The cucumber is so easy to replicate that the the friend that brought it to my place and explained it to me, I said, I don't drink gin. And she said, then you'll love this one.

It's like, fuck. You know? It's just like, I mean, it's like she was working for the company. She wasn't. So if you don't manage to do that and even it was written on the, you know, it's May.

It's only enjoyed by a handful of people or whatever it is. You know, like, if you don't manage to do it in that simple manner, the whatever, the whiskey for mixing or complicated. Yeah. The thing for this, the the the the, you know, like the this for this, the this for that. If you don't manage to do it in a sim in a super simple way that can travel like that kind of like phone For sure.

It's not gonna happen. The average consumer still think, you know, if you ask in Italy, how do you make beer? They say hops. I was always explaining hops is like pepper on the carbonara. You know, it's like if you say, how do you make carbonara?

Pepper. Pepper, yeah. You know, it's just like, but people don't know barley, don't know what barley looks like, don't know what barley is. If we don't scale that and make it more kind of like mainstream

And accessible to people.

And accessible, it's never gonna happen.

But then I think again, that's what I think is the main beauty of a bartender or a good server or a good waiter. Just be brutally honest, explain two or three key messages without giving me the story of the grandfathers. Just be very quick, very frank, explain what you think you should taste like, what you should get when you taste the thing. And that's

And I mean building on this that you read my mind, mean one of these advocacy programs, see sometimes the questions like which year was this founded? It's like are you are you serious? You know? Who cares about if it's 1879 or

Oh, shit.

You know, 1963 or, you know

Maybe just for average, but just Yeah.

But why why does the bartender has to be trained on the ear and what was the name of the founder? Nobody gives a A monkey. A monkey about that. You know, like, tell me what am I supposed to taste? You know, we were discussing this with David Blackmon that that he made Baileys, he made when he made Tanker A10, you know, it was like in in his word, it was like it was a gin for vodka drinkers.

For vodka drinkers. Yeah.

The citrusy element. The fresh fruit element. You know, like, it was, like, less juniper forward Yeah. You know, because it was it was supposed to be more, you know

Easy to drink.

Easier to drink like a vodka, example. Yeah. Then, you know or these kind of brands that we have to be able to explain it in a simple For way sure. So that people really get it.

They get it. Another star question, producer like, oh, yes, this was built, you know, the year, And also, there are some brands that just talk so much BS about the history. Because they don't have it. That's the thing. Yeah.

Exactly. You're probably right. Yes.

You know, they try because because an agency is trying to reconstruct and retro engineer a story which wasn't there. Yeah. And, fair enough, many stories are in the making.

Like, you were saying, like, the two or three key points, but, ultimately, the proof is in the pudding. Right? You try it, You like it. Great. We'll make a drink with it.

You don't like it? Well, let's move to something else.

Very often, for example, the listeners that lie to me and then say, really? Did you like, now we are friends for real, but, you know, most of 95% of my guests, I've never met them in person.

Oh, right. Okay.

Never. You know? We wrote to each other on LinkedIn, the video call or whatever. You know? And and then sometimes after the episode, we actually meet in person.

Right. And and and some people are like, I thought you were best friends. You know? And I was like, no. I never met the guy.

You know?

And and what I'm trying to to get to is is the fact that it's due to hundreds and millions of hours of me chatting to people.

For sure.

You know? And practicing and acting like an idiot. Yeah. And being fine with it and, you know, getting a red face in the beginning, you know? And that's what I try to teach to my daughter.

And for the bartenders out there, just go and test things because this is the beauty of, you know, sit at the bar next to you, why did you order the drink? You know, you don't have to be the bartender. You know, why did you order the drink? You know, like, what oh, I like peaches. Good to know.

Try to understand talk to people and test things Yeah. When there's not so much at stake. They always say, like, going for interviews. No.

Yeah.

I I don't go for interviews. Go for interviews. You know, have 10 interviews per year, even if you don't wanna change job, you know. The moment you're gonna need it Yeah. You're not gonna look like an idiot.

For sure.

But it's like let me ask you a question. Like, would you go, let's say, to a restaurant for the best meal of your life or the best time

of your life? Best time of my life.

All the time. Alright?

All the time.

So you always eat food. Like, I'm eating some, like, three Michelin star restaurant, and I just couldn't wait to get out of there. And I and I even see some let's move my my whole house and family here because it's the best style. People were courteous. Wood was great.

Yes. The plate was broken, and the wine was in the right temperature. Just the atmosphere.

But this is the thing. I love being here because that's a luxurious setting, not for everyone. It's something special. It's not that it's a

regular No. It's

okay. Agriturismo For sure. That you would come to. But it's easy. You know?

Super easy. It represents you in walls.

In walls. And we wanted to like, me and my wife, you know, she's super creative. She's done from the curtain of painting, design of all the bespoke furniture, the tables, everything. We went handpicking to markets and everything. We wanted to showcase our creativity, our pleasure in beautifully designed produce.

We didn't want to be too austere that, you know, you feel like, God, I can't touch you. We want to give people warmth. Want to have

wanna grab the the book and read it and Yeah.

There's books everywhere and there's record playing, there is music everywhere because you just want well, like, I work in, you know, the little things like the USB plugs beside your bed because, you know, whenever you go on holiday, always use your phone. But we always done some areas where we didn't want, we just want, for example, the house over there, the across the road. We just wanted to make a little space for people to just go there and chill. But my dream was not to have WiFi over there, so for people to reconnect, but the WiFi is not too strong. So you get the signal there for a while, leave a message on the door.

You know, you can always do whatever you want, maybe just try to appreciate water around it. But again, if you want to go there and scroll on your phone for fourteen hours, whatever makes you happy. Again, to the drinks that we were Whatever saying, you want will make it better. We can give you a suggestion and lead you into that.

But it's also again about about the naturality. When I walked in, it displays, it's you and Lou. It doesn't feel like, okay. There's a there's a vase that Frederigo would never buy and I've seen at this place. It's you.

It's not contrived at all.

Yeah. And also the fact that you wanna give this kind of experience that you feel at home because otherwise you get lost. To me, the the big thing is the fact that, you know, when you go to a place, it has to it has to match. Ultimately, to wrap this up, the video and the audio must be aligned. This comes to cocktails, the flavor, the look, you know, the experience of the bartender giving me that drink, the venue walking in.

If there's too many rules, it starts to be like, okay, there's a glitch in the matrix.

For sure. And I'll tell you this to tie up all the, what we talked about. The guest experience is the most important thing. It's the paramount. You know, attention to details.

That's what we say on our account on Instagram as well, like attention to details and guest services, the weakest is involved with you. I think that if you devote within brackets yourself to your guest experience, you cannot fail. You know, if you look after your guests, make them feel safe, make them feel happy, generally be interested in their welfare and their experience, they'll tell their friends like, we have to go back. We have to come with us. That's the thing with a little cherry

on the cake. So tell us how can people find you and come here and So, visit

they can come via our website, villamamo.com, villama, amo. I wanna say the name Mamo, where it comes from.

Please.

So Mamo comes from an Irish word, because my wife is Irish, my two kids are half Irish, half Italian. She's gonna be great at the bar and great at the table. Mamo, it's an Irish word for grandmother, and a grandmother is a woman that loves twice. Know? Loves their kids and loves their grandkids.

And then one day I was changing my youngest son, Marlon Snappy, And I looked at him and he was, he still, he's so beautiful. And I looked at him and I just naturally, just like, I don't remember him, me forcing myself to say, Tiago, which is I love you in Italian. And he looked at me and he was like, Mamo. Oh. So that's Wow.

The name. Done. Close. Villamamo.com. VillaMamo Italia on Instagram.

And you can find us on on various Villa Renting platform.

Fantastic. Thanks a lot, Federigo.

Thank you so much, Chris.

And We go dinner now. We go for dinner now. And let's hug like like the first

Thank you.

That's all for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Federico Riezzo. You might have felt that we went a little bit off piste sometimes, but we managed to keep each other on track. He has seen things from very different perspective, and now with his new project, Villa Mamo, where we actually recorded this episode, he went into hospitality, but he hasn't forgotten his roots into preparing delicious cocktails and upscaling them, enhancing them with some fresh botanicals from his garden. We feel that there is often a disconnect between the 50 best bars and all the prestige bars around the world and the pub or the bar down the road that can only do a spritz or gin and tonic or a Negroni at best.

So how can we close that gap so that we can have that spillover effect from the top bars in order to grow brands whether they are big and established or they are small and and bootstrapped. In this episode, as well as in the others, there's so much knowledge that I always prepare a deep dive analysis that I share by email. So you can get that at mafelldrinks.com. There are free and paid plans monthly and yearly. If you can think of a couple of people that can benefit from this episode, please share it with them in video, on Spotify, on YouTube, and in audio on Apple Podcasts and all the other platforms.

That's all for today, and remember that brands are built bottom up.