Here’s our first look before famous Gelato house from Singapore officially opens its door in manila.
How to Build a Resto: Casa Italia (Episode #1):
CHEF DONATO
F&B Director, Casa Italia
Hello, I’m Donato. I’m from Rome, Italy, and I’m a chef from Casa Italia. I’m the chef that prepare all the bread, pizza, pasta, gelato, and all the delicious Italian food for Casa Italia.
Casa Italia, which means Italian House, started in Singapore as a gelato store. And slowly along the way, we started to make our own coffee—we roast our own coffee, and then after that we introduce as well the Italian food.
So we make our own bread and pizza, and all the pasta. So I will be here in Manila for conducting the training for the gelato training and for the food training. I will be here to meet all the suppliers because we want to make sure that all the ingredients that we use here are as good as the ones we’re using in Singapore as well—all the high quality ingredients. And then I will train the team here in Manila to follow step-by-step our recipes from the bread, to the homemade fresh pasta, and to all the gelato as well.
Casa Italia Manila Series:
- CASA ITALIA | Ep. 1: Concept Behind an Authentically Italian Cafe in Manila! (Video)
- CASA ITALIA | Ep. 2: The First Italian House Opens in Manila (Video)
- CASA ITALIA in Manila: Coffee OTTO, Gelato & Italian Comfort Food Goodness!
Today our gelato master is here from Singapore and we training how to scoop the gelato. Scooping gelato is something that needs practice, a lot of practice. So we bring in our gelato master—he’s been with Casa Italia for many years. And then we train the Manila team to make the best scooping: the best-looking gelato.
Our gelato is made with all top quality ingredients imported mostly from Italy—like the best pistachio from Sicily; we’re using a very high quality chocolate, Swiss milk. And then our coffee, we’re using three different beans that we bring in from South America: we have Honduras, Guatemala, and Brazil. And then we roast it in Singapore to make it into our unique blend.
Our roast for the coffee is medium roast, which is a very traditional Italian way. We don’t make the beans very dark, but we choose to make it medium to preserve more aromas.
Our food is also done in a very traditional Italian way. We are using Italian products, best cold cuts, from the Parma Ham to the Buffalo Mozzarella Cheese in our sandwiches, the best Norway Smoked Salmon, and all the bread are done by us in a very artisan way. Our pizza dough and our bread dough are made naturally and I let rest for 48hrs before we bake. So without using a lot of use, a lot is more natural-growing.
JAY TAN
Director, Casa Italia
The reason why we brought Casa Italia to the Philippines is because of its vision. Meaning: using real, honest ingredients. A lot of people make gelatos, but not too many it the authentic, Italian way—which means, when we use flavors we use the actual fruits. For example: avocado flavors, we use actual avocados. We don’t use avocado powders. For pistachio, we use actual pistachio nuts from Bronte, Italy.
This is the vision of the founder. The owner’s vision is to create a very different concept, an authentic Italian concept that provides the best Italian comfort food. The pasta, spaghetti, roast chicken, gelato, and pizza. Here in the Philippines is the first time he can realize his full vision. We allowed him to be very creative in setting up, or designing the store. Our first store is in BGC. It’s located in Forbes Zone near Burgos Circle. It’s our flagship store—it’s about 200SQM, 2 floors, premium dining, but the prices are very, very affordable. It’s a very new concept, never seen before here in the Philippines. We partnered with one of the biggest Italian architectural firms and interior design firms for restaurants in Italy.
So it’s the first time I’ll be seeing anywhere in the world. We’ve been training for the past 2 or 3 weeks. Luckily, we have Chef Donato from Singapore with us and the gelato master, Timothy. So far everything is going smoothly, of course there are some hiccups. But one thing we noticed was the passion of our crew, our staff. If you notice, most of us here are all plus sizes. So if you don’t have this passion for food, you can’t work here, you can’t be here. So every week, we’ll probably gain 5 pounds. That’s probably from tasting gelato, 8-10 flavors a day. It’s been 2 weeks, so here we are. So far, everything’s going great. Hopefully when we open, we’re perfect.
Casa Italia soft opens on December 5, 2015 located at Burgos Park at Forbes Town Center, Bonifacio Global City.
Casa Italia Manila Series: