How did Prego start?
Prego started because the SM Group asked us whether we were interested in opening a restaurant in a casino inside the City of Dreams. For me, it was a challenge because although I’ve opened twenty-six restaurants in five different countries, I’ve never opened one inside a casino. Well, I do like a challenge. I like a new concept. We set up a feasibility study and prepared the business plan and stuff, and in the end, we reached the kind of sales that we wanted to do, but in a different way than I thought we would. The average expenditure is lower than I expected, but the turnover of diners is much higher, so it’s okay.

What is Prego’s mission and vision?
Again, because we didn’t know the demographic of the people that frequent casinos and what they look for, what we wanted to do – and when you see Prego, you’ll see we want to send that message – our vision is that we wanted to have Prego to be patronized for different kinds of needs. You can have a completely fine- dining, high-end experience but you can also have pizza and beer at the frontage, which is not as highbrow or decked out with fancy tablecloths and placemats. We have an extensive bar with thirty barstools and an equally extensive wine list and spirits, including craft beer and molecular cocktails for the after-dinner crowd. The vision was to have Prego as the choice for a dining experience at different levels.

Sometimes, the restaurant business is about kitchen-to-market – if you know what you’re doing, if you know your recipes and your food, that’s how you set up the business. In this case, we were responding to the market. We could see that the market was looking for a place to be in the afternoon, casual- style. We know now that people are looking for after-dinner entertainment and signature cocktails so we responded to that as well. So I would say that the mission has always been to create an environment that is conducive to different kinds of needs, particularly for people who frequent the casino.

That’s interesting. You’re touting the restaurant as not just a fine-dining, but also a fun-dining experience. How is all this reflected in the menu?
As far as the menu is concerned, we don’t like to mess it up too much. I mean, we are famous for traditional Italian cuisine and we would never bastardize the recipe – we would never go molecular with the food. If you look at the top of the kitchen there (Nesi points to a sign above his kitchen window in L’Opera), it says we don’t serve anything that my mother won’t eat. Molecular cuisine is an example and so we refrain from that. But we offer something a little bit more fun, something appealing to the eyes of the young like serving food on more colorful plates, unlike in L’Opera where the presentation is a bit more formal with the dishes and everything else. The courses there are a bit more hip.

It reflects on the look and on the uniformity. When you do a concept, it has to be uniform, from the way the menu and the dishes look. For instance, in Prego, we have a lot of wooden boards, oversized plates and a lot of fancy vertical construction on the food. However, as far as the recipe is concerned, they are very traditional. We just freshen up the look and the way these dishes are served.

What about Balducci, your other restaurant in Serendra? How does Prego distinguish itself from Balducci?
Balducci is for trattoria-style casual cuisine. It’s a place where you can be comfortable ordering pizza and beer – that’s what we expect Balducci to be, although you have enough choices for making a celebration more special. Balducci doesn’t have the look of an exclusive dining place, with white tablecloths and stuff like that. Prego is a bridge between Balducci and L’Opera, because in Prego you have an area that is very prim and proper, and yet you have an area that is less formal.

L’Opera’s made quite a name for itself in fine dining. What’s your strategy in assuring that Balducci and Prego maintain those standards?
You can have as much success as you want but at the end of the day, consistency is the main important thing. For the customer, he can come to your restaurant thirty times, but you’re only as good as their last visit because if they have a bad one, they won’t come back. We spend a helluva lot of effort in ensuring the consistency. It implies a lot of in-house training, management and benefits for the staff because in order to provide the right dining experience, everybody should be complementary to each other, like an opera – that’s why we call it L’Opera. The violinists should never be out of place from the horns or the clarinets. There has to be synergy.

Nowadays, it’s very important that you offer a good dining experience. Not just good food – I mean, if you don’t have good food then why bother opening a restaurant in the first place? Good food is expected but it’s not enough. You have to give a dining experience that’s composed of many, many different things. From the time the receptionist welcomes you at the door to the moment you’re seated and served water, bread and the menu, and the special of the house has been explained to you in a way you can understand, and all throughout the actual dinner, there are many different factors that can influence your dining experience.

It all goes back to consistency, having the same positive experience on and on and on again. When Tiger Woods was the ultimate world champion in golf, people asked him, ‘How do you keep yourself motivated when you’ve beaten everybody already?’ He replied, ‘I feel good beating them over and over again.’ (laughs) Now, of course we all know what happened afterwards, but like him, the satisfaction is doing just that. Every year, there are awards to strive for, and if you keep on getting them, then that is what it’s all about.

What are your most in-demand dishes in Prego and Balducci?
Starting from the appetizers, the Steamed Boneless Crab – what we do is we take out the meat, we marinate it and then we put it back into the crab shell. That is one of our best selling items. Among the pastas, it’s the Truffle Pasta with Parma Ham. For dessert, our Tiramisu and Panna Cotta – all of these have been old- time favorites for over twenty-one years. We have never changed their recipes and it seems that our customers keep ordering them over and over again.

Why do you think they’re so popular?
Well, I think that for some reason, no one here has been able to match that kind of quality – though that’s not fair to say because in the end, its the customers who decide what they like and what they don’t. What I can say is that nobody has yet been able to do it our style, our way.

How about Prego in the context of a high- roller casino complex? What challenges are you experiencing running that?
Everyone was telling me about these high-roller players and so I stocked up on wine. At L’Opera, I have about 150 labels of wine. In Prego, I got 120 different kinds – they’re very expensive wines as well – because people were telling me that when people go to a casino, they’ll spend money and want to celebrate. The reality? We don’t get that. We don’t get that many big spenders at Prego, probably only three to five percent (of total customers).

The bad thing is that I have a lot of money idle on the shelf. The good thing about having built that expensive wine inventory is that I can drink them all (chuckles).

Do you have any expansion plans for your restaurants?
We have three new concepts on the whiteboard. One is in Tagaytay and two are in Manila. We also opened one in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea. For now, we’d like to keep their concepts a secret (smiles mischievously).

You’re also a culinary instructor, from what I gather.
Yes, Enderun (Colleges), here.

Wow. How do you fit that all in your schedule?
I’m probably one of a handful of certified sommeliers here who graduated from the WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) in London. With that, I started to teach some beverage management classes at Enderun. A lot of the owners there are my customers and they asked me if I could help them – that was about two years ago. Ever since, it has been such a great success that now I do elective classes. I don’t do the full course because, as you asked me, I can’t find the time for something that heavy.

This kind of thing, you do it because you enjoy doing it. There’s no money there, it’s basically pro-bono, but it’s always good to give back to society. I’ve been here for twenty-one years. I got so much out of this country. I’m very happy to transfer whatever useless knowhow I have for people to take advantage of.

That is a beautiful thing. We’re lucky to have folks like you doing stuff like that.

I bring my pupils to L’Opera to try out a five-course meal with matching wines. It’s for them to understand how different wines react. Again, I don’t ask for the university to pay for anything. But, those are the things that really make you happy. After the semester, you see these people having passed the exam, and they were not sleeping in the classroom – they were interested.

It also goes both ways. I also learn a lot from teaching and it’s a very gratifying feeling doing this work.

How many years have you been teaching there?
About two and a half years ago. I’d been out of the Philippines prior as I came back via Kathmandu, Nepal on a motorbike. All the way to Manila.

That is so awesome! Is that how you relax?
Yeah, I like that very much. I also like teaching and cooking. When I feel stressed, I go to the kitchen and invent new recipes.

I like going around a motorbike with my wife. I’m lucky enough to have married a woman who enjoys sitting at the back of a motorbike for hours and hours and days and days! That’s an outstanding thing you don’t find in many women. Our latest trip lasted two months and 16,000 km. I also play a bit of golf.

Going back to travelling on your motorbike, what places are your favorites?
That’s a tough one. I can pick so many for so many different reasons – the colorful high energy vibrancy and culinary spices of India, or the mystical part of Bolivia or the middle of the Andes or the lush green of Ireland, the inlands of Mexico or the deserts of the Baja Peninsula.

And you went to all these places on a motorcycle? With your wife in the back?
Yes, yes we did. Every single place.