Gian Maria Mossa e Davide Oldani in "Ricette per la Ripresa"

Good morning Gianmaria, good morning to Davide Oldani, good morning Gianmaria Mossa. In my opinion, having been sick for 40 days, I can't wait to get back to work, but I'm one of the few lucky ones because I'm immune. In reality, Italy is at a standstill. And now, jokes aside, Gianmaria, Italy is at a standstill. And in your opinion, the first question I ask you, then from Davide's point of view, how much can we afford to remain as we are now? Very little, in the sense that our economy has recovered in recent years thanks to the export sector, and where there is a production chain and where we export, we have fierce competition that hasn't stopped. So it's a matter of days, not weeks. Once we come out of the fair, we have to restart. Obviously, priority number one is attention to health protection, and we need to be good at restarting.

Then if I have to be there, I was there. It's a profession of hospitality, a profession of sharing. So I probably have some concern, but certainly the wait will be for reopening. When I have guaranteed the health benefit of my guys, of the suppliers, of the people who will come to the restaurant, then I must say that the point of view of conviviality at the table will change absolutely. Friends, it will be different. In my opinion, we have been good as men to do many things in restaurants just for peculiarities, but from my point of view, in my restaurant, the situation where I worked, a table of 20 people is not for conviviality, it's for making noise, which is another type, another human approach. That's why I have always cited tables that went beyond 6-7 people, precisely because when I want conviviality at the table, I have to talk to the other person. So it's something already written that we have forgotten, due to the eagerness to do everything without knowing how to search, renouncing things that weren't worth it. But just like washing hands, sometimes as kids we were told to wash hands when entering the house, we never washed hands. Now sanitize, sanitize, they have become important rules because of this problem, but it was already written. This is the fact of conviviality in a restaurant of hospitality, and large tables in my opinion will be abolished, and it's right to do so because I want to be with people and talk to people. So all these new-old rules that were there will be imposed under the sign of product quality. I tell you about many situations of payment in restaurants these days. In some restaurant chains, we see someone using vouchers. But I want to say, there's nothing against it, but we know very well that that payment method has led to the failure of many activities because they collected and then had to wait 90, 100, 120 days to get the money. So all this fluff that was given to the fact that I have to stay on the market, it doesn't matter if I make profits, but they have to stay on the market. Then I say, we don't have to think only about profits, but we have to think about putting hay in the barn. That is what allows a small entrepreneur like me now to be, look, with crossed fingers, with a psychological tranquility and respect. I want to clarify that in my case, my guys will have salaries, they will have advances on everything, and then they will have a full reintegration at the end of the quarantine. Because you know that we will pay with the layoff fund at 80%, and of my own free will, I will reintegrate everything when we restart. This type of thing does you honor, and it is anyway, I would like to say it. But excuse me, Davide, because you are an excellence, recognized, and you have reasoned in very entrepreneurial terms. Unfortunately in Italy, there are millions of very small businesses, also in your trade, in restaurants, bars, services, that I fear will have market situations a bit more difficult in the future. So let's talk never, never, never. Can I do one last thing? It is that everyone must do their own job. FIPE and other associations, including those of chefs, were complaining until last year because there were some entrepreneurial situations for bars that did restaurant. Then a license allowed us to do many things, so you take away for a sandwich, most of the time badly made, for all that food we see in many situations that really turns the stomach. For all those situations where they didn't have the license, they took away the trade from what is the restaurateur's trade. So it was a whole chain of things that happened incorrectly. Eventually now we need to fix these things. Well, Gianmaria, they want to know two things. First, if Banca Generali is working, the markets work, the markets unfortunately work, one would say. But Banca Generali works in this period? Yes, look, we work, we work intensely with two priorities.

In my opinion, on this case, I am very optimistic. In my case, it works in my favor because I am already used to planning what is my idea of work and life. I had already planned in the last year and a half to remove two tables from my restaurant. But I wanted an even more concentrated, more elegant work, so I had already planned that. And upon return, certainly a table, I was still there precisely so that the guys can interact well with the guests. But the thing that makes me even more optimistic is that now I am in my study, in my office, and I hear the restaurant phone ringing. And there are 6, 7, 8, 10, 15 days of bookings from when we closed almost a month ago. So I hear the phone ringing these days. Under a permit, I answer out of curiosity. The phone continues to ring. There must be a reason. Certainly, more than one person told me: look, we never manage to eat there. In this dark moment, I want to be optimistic and book a table for September, October, November at your place. I swear, it's not just one, they keep coming. Even now, I don't know the stand because I have headphones, but the sense of optimism is in the practicality that evidently having sown well before brings you the rest of the days to have the phone hammering because people want to be reassured, a bit like saying: will you have the table? Naturally, I can't give it to them because I don't know how it will be, I don't know when in September. Davide, in September you can't give it. I ask you, Davide, but September, can you give the table? I am very cautious now. So we are grown, if you don't give it, we are dead. Twenty tables in September, we can't resist until September without Oldani, are you joking? For the soldiers, without all the others. Look, my mother said, a bit more philosophical: man proposes, God disposes. Everything was written. We should have only followed with respect all those written rules. More is never good. So to these ladies who call, they still feel reassured because I answer the phone. So just give a thread of psychological tranquility, and then the money. I have seen that the good Lord has put us so, we must in one way or another wait.

And instead of money, Gianmaria, here I want to understand now, explain well what the devil it is. I think your phone rings 500,000 times a day because your activity is in this moment, markets are crashing, BTPs are rising and falling, and I almost don't know what question to ask you because I don't know which of the 100 questions I would like to ask you. If this 1,400 billion liquidity in current accounts that we have obtained in this phase, maybe it went well for us, I don't know. The markets had reached their highs, so a bit of recovery. Look, a so-called thing: as a journalist with a straight back said, Prime Minister, ask yourself a question and give yourself an answer.

Then the last question is a question that concerns different sectors, but in its simplicity, I think it tells everything. Davide, do you feel today more like you felt during the great financial crisis of 2008 when markets crashed, or closer to the tragedy of September 11, when all of us were scared and the markets were also scared? More 9/11 or 2008? Davide, maybe more 2008 because I lived it more as an entrepreneur. On 9/11, I was traveling around the world, I was scared for other reasons. So it's more 2008. And for you, Gianmaria? More 2008, a great crisis from which we recovered relatively, or 9/11, that sharp blow that changed the history of the West?

Welcome, a dinner exactly. Como, from the last time I feared it was made by him already, but the only one, there was need. The last dinner Sunday evening, the only one, made by him. When was it, Davide? Two or three days before his death. And kayak, and anyway instead, the only thing we must think at this moment is that the tragedy is health, we must solve it because this is the real great one of the moment. The economic one risks being equally great. Davide, I wish you good luck, obviously also to Gianmaria, and I would say that they gave to profit, conclude it.